how do billy collins make you feel when you read them?

Question

for example, the poem "morning"

Answer 1

When I read a poem by Billy Collins, I expect to understand what he's talking about from the very beginning, to stand with him on common ground, then to get an elbow in my side, pushing me to see something I haven't seen before or to see it in a new way. I expect to begin by saying something like, "Oh, yeah, been there, done that, that's just the way it is, you got that right." But then at some point, I expect to begin saying, "Oho, so that's where you're going; never thought of it that way before; aha!" It's the "aha" that lifts his poetry above the ordinary.

In his preface to The Best American Poetry 2006, he makes several statements that indicate his ideals in the writing/reading of poetry:


"I am bored by poems that are transparent from begining to end, but I am quick to put down poems whose opening lines make me feel I have walked in on the middle of a Swedish movie being run backward with no subtitles."

". . . opening lines are where readers usually look for their bearings."

"The recognizable sound of a human voice is always an inducement to continue [reading a poem]."

"Being oriented at the outset of a poem offers the promise of being pleasantly disoriented later as the poem moves into more complex territory."

"I [am] drawn to poems where the poet did not seem completely sure of where he or she was headed."

"Poems act more alive and immediate when they exhibit a degree of self-awareness by turning on themselves or commenting on their own existence."

"Perhaps the very best poems combine an acute awareness of tradition with a unique freshness of voice."


So, when I read Collins' poetry, I always expect to be pleased, then surprised by a little twist, a "pleasant disorientation," maybe challenged to rethink my perception of something, but never at loose ends to understand what the h*** the poet is talkin' about.

Answerer #1 calls that "smarmy" "drivel." Well, there are quite enough elitist, academic poets out there drawing good salaries as professors in "creative" writing programs to keep him happy for a long time to come. Give me poems like those by Billy Collins, Mary Oliver, Andrew Hudgins, Wendell Berry, Lucille Clifton, any day. To each, his own.

But poems do need to have that "aha." I don't want them to be just talk written in lines. I can do that for myself. I want their talk to have a definite twist, "turning on themselves," entering "complex territory."

It's as if Collins may have written "Morning" as a clear-cut example of his poetry, "the sound of a human voice," letting the reader know his bearings. This is a morning like anybody's morning: feet on the cold floor, a splash of water on the face, buzzing around on espresso.

The poet's "self-awareness" as a poet is readily apparent: the dictionary, the atlas (why was I expecting a thesaurus?), the typewriter, even the cello on the radio. Yep, been there, done that. That's just the way a morning is, all right.

The twist in "Morning"--well, it's just a modest one, not really much of an aha, not much disorienting. There's the window, the old trees, the clouds rolling in. And then (aha...?) the lawn steaming like a horse. Well, of course the poet/writer has to sit down at his typewriter and ride this steaming horse off into the sunrise, the "swale of afternoon," the dip of the evening. That's the work a writer has to do. Hitch up that horse!

I have to admit there are many Collins poems I like better than this one. Poems like this one make me say, "Sure, I can do that." Then I do. I scratch out poems that record my day for me, that will help me remember what life was like back in '06. I don't expect anyone else to want to read them, just me.

It's not "smarmy drivel." It's just personal, and doesn't have much of a communal "aha," neither "acute awareness" nor "unique freshness." Oh, well, you win some, lose some, and some are just steamy horses outside your window. You live with what you got.

That's how this poem makes me feel when I read it. I wonder how it made you feel.

Morning
by Billy Collins

Why do we bother with the rest of the day,
the swale of the afternoon,
the sudden dip into evening,

then night with his notorious perfumes,
his many-pointed stars?

This is the best—
throwing off the light covers,
feet on the cold floor,
and buzzing around the house on espresso—

maybe a splash of water on the face,
a palmful of vitamins—
but mostly buzzing around the house on espresso,

dictionary and atlas open on the rug,
the typewriter waiting for the key of the head,
a cello on the radio,

and, if necessary, the windows—
trees fifty, a hundred years old
out there,
heavy clouds on the way
and the lawn steaming like a horse
in the early morning.

Billy Collins, “Morning” from Picnic, Lightning. Copyright © 1998 by Billy Collins. All rights are controlled by the University of Pittsburgh Press. Reprinted with the permission of the University of Pittsburgh Press, www.pitt.edu/~press/.

Source: Poetry (June 1996).

Answer 2

I really dislike Billy Collins. His poems have kind of a smarmy, car-salesman quality to them that I find really unpleasant, and they're terribly formulaic. When I've read them, his poems make me feel sort of annoyed that he managed to get so famous writing such drivel. It's not just anti-intellectual, it's anti-poetry.