This column is in response to the people who have asked when I would write about Billy Collins. I tell them that it’s hard to write when I am flat-out laughing or constantly nodding my head in wonder at the quirky observations of this most conversational and entertaining of poets. He has been celebrated as America’s most popular living poet, and book sales bear that out. That he has served as the Poet Laureate of the United States only dignifies his popularity.
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Let’s dive into a Collins poem and in particular one that presents a special characteristic of his writing: that from the opening of his poems there is no way of predicting where they are going and how they will end. As Collins himself has put it, his poems tend to “begin in Kansas and end in Oz.”
The neighbors’ dog will not stop barking.
He is barking the same high, rhythmic bark
that he barks every time they leave the house.
They must switch him on on their way out.
The neighbors’ dog will not stop barking.
I close all the windows in the house
and put on a Beethoven symphony full blast
but I can still hear him muffled under the music,
barking, barking, barking,
and now I can see him sitting in the orchestra,
his head raised confidently as if Beethoven
had included a part for barking dog.
When the record finally ends he is still barking,
sitting there in the oboe section barking,
his eyes fixed on the conductor who is
entreating him with his baton
while the other musicians listen in respectful
silence to the famous barking dog solo,
that endless coda that first established
Beethoven as an innovative genius.
* * *
Here’s another poem where the first stanza seems quite traditional but the second offers the unexpected.
I would like to be laid to rest in a big tomb
topped by a stone figure of an angel,
who appears to have landed there
in order to sob forevermore,
her face buried in her bent arm,
one folded wing hanging by her side.
Then, whenever I found the time
to visit my own grave,
after approaching with slow, respectful steps,
I would place around her rough neck
the garland of wildflowers that I knitted,
then run back to the car, laughing and immortal!
* * *
Collins was born in New York City in 1941 and received degrees from Holy Cross and the University of California Riverside where he earned a doctorate in Romantic Poetry. Having enjoyed a continuing career of writing and teaching, he now lives in Florida where “women with ponytails are riding bikes with dogs in wicker baskets.”
Not since Robert Frost has an American poet so thoroughly combined accolades from the critics with ovations from the public. He certainly sits near the top of my list of favorite poets and amazes me for his ability to find a poem in the most ordinary of events.
One bright morning in a restaurant in Chicago
as I waited for my eggs and toast,
I opened the Tribune only to discover
that I was the same age as Cheerios.
Indeed, I was a few months older than Cheerios
for today, the newspaper announced,
was the seventieth birthday of Cheerios
whereas mine had occurred earlier in the year.
Already I could hear them whispering
behind my stooped and threadbare back,
Why that dude’s older than Cheerios
the way they used to say
Why that’s as old as the hills,
only the hills are much older than Cheerios
or any American breakfast cereal,
and more noble and enduring are the hills,
I surmised as a bar of sunlight illuminated my orange juice.
* * *
* * *
Collins has regularly divided his public time between teaching and giving poetry readings of his work. He is so much a man of the people that strangers feel comfortable in approaching him with ideas. He calls this poem “The Suggestion Box.”
It all began fairly early in the day
at the coffee shop as it turned out
when the usual waitress said
I’ll bet you’re going to write a poem about this
after she had knocked a cup of coffee into my lap.
Then later in the morning I was told
by a student that I should write a poem
about the fire drill that was going on
as we all stood on the lawn outside our building.
In the afternoon a woman I barely knew
said you could write a poem about that,
pointing to a dirigible that was passing overhead.
And if all that were not enough,
a friend turned to me as we walked past
a man whose face was covered with tattoos
and said, I see poem coming!
Why is everyone being so helpful?
I wondered that evening by the shore of a lake.
Maybe I should write a poem
about all the people who think
they know what I should be writing poems about.
It was just then in the fading light that I spotted
a pair of ducks emerging
from a cluster of reeds to paddle out to open water,
the female glancing back over her russet shoulder
just in time to see me searching my pockets for a pen.
I knew it, she quacked, with a bit of a brogue.
But who can blame you for following your heart?
she went on.
Now, go write a lovely poem about me and the mister.
* * *
Humor may be at the heart of Collins’ writing, but it is often in the service of a serious subject. I have heard audiences laugh at much of this poem called “Forgetfulness,” but by the finish their heart strings have been plucked and a soft melody derived.
The name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly becomes one you have never read, never even heard of,
as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
to a little fishing village where there are no phones.
Long ago you kissed the names of the nine muses goodbye
and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,
and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,
something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,
the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.
Whatever it is you are struggling to remember,
it is not poised on the tip of your tongue
or even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.
It has floated away down a dark mythological river
whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall
well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those
who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle.
No wonder you rise in the middle of the night
to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war.
No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted
out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.
* * *
Collins is an admirer of T. S. Eliot and his famous “Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” which contains this passage:
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
To which Collins couldn’t help but respond:
I just dared to eat
a really big peach
as ripe as it could be
and I have on
a pair of plaid shorts
and a blue tee shirt with a hole in it
and little rivers of juice
are now running down my chin and wrist
and dripping onto the pool deck.
What is your problem, man?
* * *
* * *
Collins . . . it’s hard not to call him simply “Billy” . . . prefers not to use rhyme, and after considering for a time the lyric from “My Fair Lady” that goes “The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain” he responded with a new book titled “The Rain in Portugal”.
There’s so much more I’d like to share with you that perhaps, if our readers agree, we might consider a follow-up column. For now we’ll just say this:
We can have more Billy Collins
at a future time.
In the meanwhile please don’t tell him
we’ve just used a rhyme!
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VIDEO. We drop in on Collins reading his poetry before a delighted audience. You’ll hear “Safe Travels,” “The Lanyard” and “To My Favorite 17-Year-Old High School Girl.” We should note that Collins readings are invariably sold out.
He has three times given readings in the White House and on one occasion before a joint session of Congress commemorating 9/11.
CLICK ON THIS LINK FOR VIDEO: BILLY COLLINS
