Blog #10

Last week's blog was a little depressing so I wanted to share some poetry by Billy Collins, who enjoys poking fun at people and life.

Billy Collins (born William James Collins March 22, 1941) is an American poet, appointed as Poet Laureate of the United States from 2001 to 2003.^[1] He is a Distinguished Professor at Lehman College of the City University of New York and is the Senior Distinguished Fellow of the Winter Park Institute, Florida. Collins was recognized as a Literary Lion of the New York Public Library (1992) and selected as the New York State Poet for 2004-2006.

Billy Collins has been called "The most popular poet in America" by the New York Times.
Over the years, the U.S. magazine Poetry has awarded Collins several prizes in recognition of poems they publish. During the 1990s, Collins won five such prizes. The magazine also selected him as "Poet of the Year" in 1994. In 2005 Collins was the first annual recipient of its Mark Twain Prize for Humor in Poetry. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts and in 1993, from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation (Wikipedia).

 

Please read or watch the following poem, "Litany" by Billy Collins.  But if you can, I recommend watching Billy Collins perform his poem on the YouTube Video.  Before he reads the poem, he shares with the viewers some of information about the poem.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56Iq3PbSWZY

Litany 

                    by Billy Collins

  You are the bread and the knife,

The crystal goblet and the wine...

-Jacques Crickillon

You are the bread and the knife,

the crystal goblet and the wine.

You are the dew on the morning grass

and the burning wheel of the sun.

You are the white apron of the baker,

and the marsh birds suddenly in flight.

However, you are not the wind in the orchard,

the plums on the counter,

or the house of cards.

And you are certainly not the pine-scented air.

There is just no way that you are the pine-scented air.

It is possible that you are the fish under the bridge,

maybe even the pigeon on the general's head,

but you are not even close

to being the field of cornflowers at dusk.

And a quick look in the mirror will show

that you are neither the boots in the corner

nor the boat asleep in its boathouse.

It might interest you to know,

speaking of the plentiful imagery of the world,

that I am the sound of rain on the roof.

I also happen to be the shooting star,

the evening paper blowing down an alley

and the basket of chestnuts on the kitchen table.

I am also the moon in the trees

and the blind woman's tea cup.

But don't worry, I'm not the bread and the knife.

You are still the bread and the knife.

You will always be the bread and the knife,

not to mention the crystal goblet and--somehow--the wine.

Billy Collins is making fun of something.  What do you think it is?  You might want to Google the reference within the poem "-Jacques Crickillon" in order to make sense of the rest of the poem.

Use some of the phrases from the poem to explain what you think the poem is about.  Hint:  It might help to watch the video if you cannot answer this question.

No need to comment back to another person's comment this week.  I hope that you just enjoy the poem(s).  But please comment back to me by Sunday, October, 23rd.

Want to read more of Billy Collins' poems.  Then click on the link below and it will take you to a website that has a recording of the poem "Workshop."  This poem makes fun of student writers who are peer editing each other's poem.  Very funny stuff.

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19755

Workshop    

by Billy Collins 

I might as well begin by saying how much I like the title.

It gets me right away because I’m in a workshop now

so immediately the poem has my attention,

like the Ancient Mariner grabbing me by the sleeve.

And I like the first couple of stanzas,

the way they establish this mode of self-pointing

that runs through the whole poem

and tells us that words are food thrown down

on the ground for other words to eat.

I can almost taste the tail of the snake

in its own mouth,

if you know what I mean.

But what I’m not sure about is the voice,

which sounds in places very casual, very blue jeans,

but other times seems standoffish,

professorial in the worst sense of the word

like the poem is blowing pipe smoke in my face.

But maybe that’s just what it wants to do.

What I did find engaging were the middle stanzas,

especially the fourth one.

I like the image of clouds flying like lozenges

which gives me a very clear picture.

And I really like how this drawbridge operator

just appears out of the blue

with his feet up on the iron railing

and his fishing pole jigging—I like jigging—

a hook in the slow industrial canal below.

Maybe it’s just me,

but the next stanza is where I start to have a problem.

I mean how can the evening bump into the stars?

And what’s an obbligato of snow?

Also, I roam the decaffeinated streets.

At that point I’m lost. I need help.

The other thing that throws me off,

and maybe this is just me,

is the way the scene keeps shifting around.

First, we’re in this big aerodrome

and the speaker is inspecting a row of dirigibles,

which makes me think this could be a dream.

Then he takes us into his garden,

the part with the dahlias and the coiling hose,

though that’s nice, the coiling hose,

but then I’m not sure where we’re supposed to be.

The rain and the mint green light,

that makes it feel outdoors, but what about this wallpaper?

Or is it a kind of indoor cemetery?

There’s something about death going on here.

In fact, I start to wonder if what we have here

is really two poems, or three, or four,

or possibly none.

But then there’s that last stanza, my favorite.

This is where the poem wins me back,

especially the lines spoken in the voice of the mouse.

I mean we’ve all seen these images in cartoons before,

but I still love the details he uses

when he’s describing where he lives.

The perfect little arch of an entrance in the baseboard,

the bed made out of a curled-back sardine can,

the spool of thread for a table.

I start thinking about how hard the mouse had to work

night after night collecting all these things

while the people in the house were fast asleep,

and that gives me a very strong feeling,

a very powerful sense of something.

But I don’t know if anyone else was feeling that.

Maybe that was just me.

Maybe that’s just the way I read it.