This is for Peter who nagged me ever so gently for a
review.
Reading Billy Collins is fun. You don’t have to keep
linking back and forth to the online dictionary, parsing the poetic sentence to
determine the complete thought, and wondering what the heck was he saying,
anyway? Billy Collins’ poems are accessible and yet they still pay off because
they are, like all good poems, about life’s beauty and death’s inevitability.
But listening to Billy Collins is even more fun—because he’s funny.
Yep, laugh-out-loud funny.
I know this because I saw him speak last
Friday outside Atlanta at the AJC
Decatur Book Festival. The venue, Agnes Scott College, was packed beyond
standing room. The line queued around Presser Hall (of interest to me only in
an unpractical way as I accompanied my brother-in-law to our VIP seats right up
front—thanks, Sis) a hundred deep an hour before show time.
Mr. Collins, whom I’m dying to call Billy,
was relaxed in a friendly open-collared way. His a-little-too-longish hair
stuck out in those Bozo tufts which he must know added to the comedic sense surrounding
him. He chose poems he knew would get a laugh and his timing was perfect. Also
perfect were his set ups; he introduced each poem with just enough information
to fully welcome the audience to it. I’d always been amused by Billy Collins’
poems on the page but his reading found the absurdities I’d missed in my own.
He was humble—I had forced a pseudo-seriousness on him that didn’t quite fit.
One of the first poems he read was “Fishing
On The Susquehanna In July.” I was charmed because its subject
sprang from the painting I remembered studying in grammar school. Herman
Herzog's Fishing On The Susquehanna
Its
first line, “I have never been fishing on the Susquehanna,” opened the poem to
its humor. Neither have I ever fished the Susquehanna, but its image
is a part of the American landscape just as Collins poetry has become a part of
American culture.
Another
poem he read was “I Chop Some Parsley While Listening To Art Blakey’s Version
Of “Three Blind Mice.” This one spoke of the power of music to soften
“the cynic who always lounges within.” An interesting aside here from the poet
was that "mice" tend to “come to the surface” in his poems.
Collins said his
poem "Litany" was a send-up of two lines he had come across by
another poet and parodied. His emulation took the poem in a new direction and
I'll bet, I enjoyed it so much, to a new height. It begins with a comparison,
as love poems often have done, to a woman's beauty: "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"; it segues to an assessment of the
speaker/poet himself. The audience got a great kick out of his delivery of the
following lines:
It might interest you to know
speaking of the plentiful imagery in 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.
But it is his affection for his subject that makes me fond of Billy Collins. The poem's last line speaks of love's intoxicating properties: "But don't worry...//you will always be.../..somehow--the wine."
That’s how Billy Collins is in
person—like a glass of good wine—he makes you feel good and you want a little
more.
My friend, H.W., suggested in a poem “become the novel you live.”What a good line.
The novel of my life has lots of action but the plot hasn’t been developing towards a climax and resolution that the author (me) is in control of. That’s the trouble with letting life just happen all around you.
Some of what has been happening, though, follows:
Went to
North Carolina
last week and drove on more twisty turn-y roads than you can imagine. Saw waterfalls, mountains, lakes, and cool weather.
Got together with the Pips for a bridal shower.
Had a little party for Pat on his birthday June 14th.
Have been seeing all my sisters. (Looking for a picture of the four of us, I found these two which I like very much because they show our obvious enjoyment of each others’ company.)
So back to the novel of my life. Who are these girls and where are they going? Am I the director, the auteur, or just a character? Oh, funny, I see I’ve just changed the novel into a movie. It’s a start, anyway. I know the metaphorical movie/book is in there somewhere :-)
Came across this pic from the summer and realised I have not seen some of you since then! Here's an update: we spent Saturday at the bride and groom's for the Notre Dame game. Wait until you go there; it is like a first class sports bar--leather couches, great food, three TVs, and outside games for the children.
Last week was Sheila's birthday so we had dinner in Miami at the Melting Pot (Sheila, Eddie, Adam, Candy and Ralph, and Pat and I). Fondue lives!
Tomorrow is our anniversary so the G______s are taking us to a la Turca, the Mediterranean restaurant on Hollywood Boulevard. They smoke from a hookah at midnight on Tuesdays but I'm pretty sure we'll all be home in bed by then.
