The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

    Happy Birthday, Billy Collins.

    By Oxy Mora on Mon, 03/21/2016 - 9:53am |

     

     

    In the midst of political rhetoric which has now reached a kind of sixth dimension of reality shows interbreeding with news hosts and spawning the likes of You Know Who, we are very fortunate to have our poets, especially Billy Collins, born on March 22.  

    With more gall than intrepidness I offer a small tribute, a poetic review of my favorite collection of his poems, in the book, "Sailing alone around the room". (published some time ago).

     

           AHOY, BILLY.

     

    Stirring opposite reflections,

    ---he walks across the Atlantic,

    what must the fish underneath be thinking?

     

    A man's hat wanders around the city.

    It's all clever,

    then you remember your father's hat,

    coming and going,

    and the long talks with him

    you wish you'd had. 

     

    Billy beats up a poem,

         examines metaphor and simile,

         enjambs spinnaker and jib until the damn things give in,

    then,

    seduces you

    with the gentle touch of a kind soul,

    seduces himself,

    perhaps,                                

    with a grin,

    or gross receipts.

     

    On his birthday,

    he still inhabits a treasure of a book,

    "Sailing alone around tbe room"

    ISBN 0-375-50380-3 (acid free paper).

    and briefly appeared

    on this page,

    or the other side of it.

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Comments

    Billy Collins, a national treasure, his poetry often described as "accessible' in the vein of Frost's "freshness and simplicity" when in early times he was compared with Eliot and Wallace Stevens. Yes, he's accessible. I cry, thinking of my Dad, every time I read "Death of the hat". 


    by Oxy Mora on Mon, 03/21/2016 - 2:41pm

    Anecdote: I couldn't find my copy of the book, was going from memory on some poems. I wanted to re-read some poems and decided to buy another book---a huge challenge these days to find a book store, but, thankfully, there is Half Priced Books, with stores around Dallas. (won't do Collins any good, I promise to buy one on Amazon, probably not much better for him). In any case, found a copy of "The Trouble with poetry", $3 bucks, but it was a signed copy, and not many of this printing around. Now that's congruence. Or is it serendipity? If you haven't scouted books in Salvation Army stores and thrift stores all over the country, you might not get the thrill of finding a signed copy which has been mis-priced, for which you weren't even looking, and by the bloke in your blog.


    by Oxy Mora on Mon, 03/21/2016 - 4:18pm

    I did not know who this gentle soul was. ha

    "He seques to parallel planes"

    Then seduces you with the gentle touch of a kind soul?

    Thank you, I shall look this guy up.

    ha

     


    by Richard Day on Mon, 03/21/2016 - 11:42pm

    Thanks, Mr. Day. You might know one of his most "popular"---oh, what a nasty word to use---poems, "Another reason I don't keep a Gun in the House."

    Collins admittedly tries for a touch of disorientation with, for one thing, shifts in physical perspective. 

    He was Poet Laureate of the U.S. from 2001 to 2003.


    by Oxy Mora on Tue, 03/22/2016 - 10:12am

    Bernie Sanders to announce his pick for Poet Laureate today after the primaries.

    Several notable poets have lived in Vermont.

    David Mamet frequents Vermont and has, well, written four poems, along with winning a Pulitzer, and has a kind of raspy personality not unlike Bernie and the restaurant owner who I have seen throw people out of his joint for not ordering enough desert.  

    (I had found some Mamet first editions in a Good Will store in Florida, shipped them to my daughter in Vermont. She took them into a neighborhood joint, asked Mamet to sign them, which he did, also drawing some caricatures of himself on the title page, very gracious he was.) 


    by Oxy Mora on Tue, 03/22/2016 - 10:50am