When you get a poem [in a public place], it happens to you so suddenly that you don't have time to deploy your anti-poetry deflector shields that were installed in high school.

Collins jokes that many people learn to brace themselves against poetry because of how it is often taught in school—overanalyzed, treated like a puzzle, and associated with anxiety about “getting it right.” In a public, unexpected setting, a poem can slip past those learned defenses and be experienced more directly, as sound, feeling, or sudden recognition. The sci‑fi metaphor of “deflector shields” underscores how automatic this resistance can become, while also implying it is not innate but installed—therefore removable. The line advocates for encountering poems as lived events rather than academic exercises, aligning with Collins’s broader public-facing mission to make poetry feel accessible and pleasurable.