Funny Poem Week: Day Five (Billy Collins)

Billy Collins is perhaps my favorite current poet. He is real, active, self-depracating, observant, and most of all funny. In an interview he gave to publicize his new volume of poetry, Aimless Love, he speaks about the pressure to be funny.

He says, "Well, I thought originally when I was in school and I wanted to be a poet, I knew that poets seemed to be miserable. And I was a pretty happy kid, so I decided... to fake it. I had to get into this miserable character before I wrote poems. And it wasn’t for quite a while that I was able to read poets that were —[that] allowed me to be humorous without being silly."

You can watch the whole interview using the link below:

Poet Billy Collins discusses humor, authenticity and ‘Aimless Love’

There are also some good TED Talks featuring Billy Collins, if you're interested in learning more. The link below offers animated versions of five of his poems.

http://www.ted.com/talks/billy_collins_everyday_moments_caught_in_time?language=en#t-630056


Here is a poem that I can relate to about forgetting the books that I have read. I devour so many books, live fully in the moment as I digest them but have a sort of "literary amnesia" afterward. Yes, I read that! I liked it! But what was it about?? What happened? I'm glad I'm not the only one who experiences this frustration about not being able to retain these worlds of prose.

Forgetfulness by Billy Collins    

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.

 

 

Here's another excellent poem that we can appreciate as we ponder, Will this snow EVER melt? Will Spring EVER COME?

 

Snow Day by Billy Collins

Today we woke up to a revolution of snow,

its white flag waving over everything,

the landscape vanished,

not a single mouse to punctuate the blankness,   

and beyond these windows

the government buildings smothered,

schools and libraries buried, the post office lost   

under the noiseless drift,

the paths of trains softly blocked,

the world fallen under this falling.

In a while, I will put on some boots

and step out like someone walking in water,   

and the dog will porpoise through the drifts,   

and I will shake a laden branch

sending a cold shower down on us both.

But for now I am a willing prisoner in this house,   

a sympathizer with the anarchic cause of snow.   

I will make a pot of tea

and listen to the plastic radio on the counter,   

as glad as anyone to hear the news

that the Kiddie Corner School is closed,   

the Ding-Dong School, closed.

the All Aboard Children’s School, closed,   

the Hi-Ho Nursery School, closed,

along with—some will be delighted to hear—

the Toadstool School, the Little School,

Little Sparrows Nursery School,

Little Stars Pre-School, Peas-and-Carrots Day School   

the Tom Thumb Child Center, all closed,

and—clap your hands—the Peanuts Play School.

So this is where the children hide all day,

These are the nests where they letter and draw,   

where they put on their bright miniature jackets,   

all darting and climbing and sliding,

all but the few girls whispering by the fence.

And now I am listening hard

in the grandiose silence of the snow,

trying to hear what those three girls are plotting,   

what riot is afoot,

which small queen is about to be brought down.

 

 

Billy Collins' poetry makes everyday life magical and transcendent.

 

And just because I can't stop myself, one more. This makes me think of my son and nephew, then

three years old, glued for hours to their toy train tables, caught up in a whirlwind of actity and 

imagination.

 

 

BOYHOOD by Billy Collins

Alone in the basement,
I would sometimes lower one eye
to the level of the narrow train track

to watch the puffing locomotive
pull the cars around a curve
then bear down on me with its dazzling eye.

What was in those moments
before I lifted my head and let the train
go rocking by under my nose?

I remember not caring much
about the fake grass or the buildings
that made up the miniature town.

The same went for the station and its master,
the crossing gates and flashing lights,
the milk car, the pencil-size logs,

the metallic men and women,
the dangling water tower,
and the round mirror for a pond.

All I wanted was to be blinded
over and over by this shaking light
as the train stuck fast to its oval course.

Or better still, to close my eyes,
to stay there on the cold narrow rails
and let the train tunnel through me

the way it tunneled through the mountain
painted the color of rock,
and then there would be nothing

but the long whistling through the dark -
no basement, no boy,
no everlasting summer afternoon.