Billy Collins

Collins' contemporary shows when he says of his poetry, "We are attempting, all the time, to create a logical, rational path through the day. To the left and right there are an amazing set of distractions that we can't afford to follow. But the poet is willing to stop anywhere." While I'm sure that this rang as true yesterday as today, something about it seems awfully fluid for the modern ear. Painting a house, listening to Jazz while preparing a meal... these things we can gather up and respond to at a moments' notice, without having to harken back to history lessons to put ourselves in dusty, time-cracked shoes. Like all of us, like Frost's Gold, Collins loves the color-popping moments that make up life. Even so, Collins seems to take the business of stopping anywhere a little too seriously.

To the poems...

Forgetfulness
A novel approach regarding the subject of forgetfulness. Mostly just cute.

Tuesday, June 4, 1991
(Not found online.)
Mostly a snapshot of a day. Some echos of Longfellow (as in "up and doing") and only one stanza really gives it to me:

"...But tomorrow, dawn will come the way I picture her,

barefoot and disheveled, standing outside my window
in one of the fragile cotton dresses of the poor.
She will look in at me with her thin arms extended
offering a handful of birdsong and a small cup of light."

I find myself a momentary finger-snapping beatnik.

I Chop Some Parsley While Listening to Art Blakey's Version of "Three Blind Mice"
Although the first stanza is a riot, Dana Carvey took this one exactly where it needed to go. Billy has a lot to say of a moment, but in our anthology's selections, those moments just stay right up there on the surface. Somehow I find myself silently pondering much ado about nothing.

The Night House
Frost reference spotted here:

"...mending a stone wall
or swinging a sickle through the tall grass..."

I did love:

"...the soft bells of sleep."

and

"...the body-that house of voices..."

But overall, Collins really doesn't do it for me.

I know what it is:
Collins just isn't sad enough! ha-HA!

The cat is too busy (keeping time with his favorite Jazz album) to push up daisies. No grave for you!