Poetry Passion: Revealed

There are a lot of things that go along with being a writer. Practicing the craft, staying on top of grammar limitations, but in my opinion, being an active reader is essential to growth for a writer. My studies in creative writing have expanded the reach in regards to genre. I no longer head straight for the fiction section when I enter a bookstore. I like to challenge myself--pick up a cook book or a how-to piece on gardening. The other day while browsing the isles at Barnes and Noble, I found myself in the poetry section. I happed to pick up a thick collection of poems by a previous Poet Laureate, Billy Collins. After thumbing through the pages, page 15 caught my eye.

Is there a more gentle way to go into the night
than to follow an endless rope of sentences
and then to slip drowsily under the surface of a page
into the first tentative flicker of a dream,
passing out of the bright precincts of attention
like cigarette smoke passing through a window screen? ("Reading Myself to Sleep")

In Questions About Angels, Billy Collins captures in a simplistically beautiful way the journey that is life. The broad range of subject matter almost lends a sense of universality to the collection; everyone is bound to find something to relate to in his ninety page masterpiece. His tone varies greatly from piece to piece. In "The History Teacher," Collins takes on a very playful tone-- as if speaking to the students in this particular professor’s classroom.

Trying to protect his students’ innocence
He told them the Ice Age was really just
The Chilly Age, a period of a million years
When everyone had to wear sweaters.

Then, in poem’s such as "Pensee," Collins explores life and death with strong metaphors embedded deeply in historical facts and figures such as Pascal and Magellan. This was one of my favorite poems in the book. It is a perfect example of Collins’ ability to take the simplest concepts and transform them into an astonishing, explosive image with so much power.

We die only when we run out of footprints.
Then the biographers move in to retrace our paths,
Enclosing them in tall mazes of lumber
To make our lives see more complex, more arduous,
To make our leaving the room seem heroic.

Another trademark of Collins’ is seen in "Pensee." He maintains great control throughout his poems by choosing a single image or concept, sticks with it and finds a way to creatively incorporate it until the end of the poem.
Collins writes with impressive diction and winds in and out of incredible metaphors with ease. His words always seem to fit perfectly onto each line. Typically, his lines are much longer than most would expect in poems but his poems, with their lengthy lines and lingering images stay true to his own style, which is truly remarkable. He is not afraid to use big, convoluted, sometimes confusing words because the reader gets the sense that it doesn’t really matter that much to him if you don’t get the word, skip over it, keep going-- you’ll get it in the end. Collins’ also doesn’t shy from name-dropping; he turns these great figures into humans the reader can relate to. Cezanne is merely “… a pair of eyes swimming in brushstrokes,” and Kafka is struggling to put words on his page just like every other troubled writer. Collins is a great leveler, which I believe is very important, especially in published work, poems that have an audience. Finally, Collins’ metaphors are ultimately what grab at you from each page; they leave you dumbfounded, all you can write is a pathetic little “wow,” in the margin. Sometimes there just aren’t words and that’s it. Collins’ Questions About Angels is magical, mystical and leaves you completely unsure of what it is you have experienced once you finally put it down-- he makes you feel alive and for me, that was enough.

I will feel the rotation of the earth
As electrically as the sudden touch of a stranger.
I will wonder how many thousands of days
It would take the two of us to walk to the moon.