Forum / Billy Collins

• 
  Dolemite

  Jun 10, 12:50pm

  Have come to hate the very name. Like Savoir Faire he's everywhere. From what I've heard, he's supposed to be easy, fun, light-but-deep(ish), though I wouldn't know, as I've refused to read him. On principle.

  And what's up with "Billy"?!

  Then I read this:

  http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/482/the-art-of-poetry-no-83-billy-collins

  and have decided to give him a chance...

  ;-)

• 
  Lucinda Kempe

  Jun 10, 02:28pm

  I heard him read at Southampton. Chops he got. Very droll and wise. Personally, a bit tart, but then what poet isn't tart?

• 
  Dolemite

  Jun 10, 02:32pm

  I guess I'm just highly suspicious of public success. BUT

  the interview was VERY engaging and entertaining.

• 
  James Lloyd Davis

  Jun 10, 02:52pm

  I've always liked Billy Collins. Liked Updike, too. There's a verisimilitude in the wry, snickering work of both men. Maybe snickering's the wrong word, but they really snicker when you're not watching.

  Loathing Billy Collins, hating Hemingway, and gushing over Chekhov may be symptomatic of some universal impulse in human nature, at least in humans of the modern American literary persuasion. I can't really explain or define it and it doesn't have a name. It's not necessarily wrong or bad, just... not always founded in logic, or so it seems to me at least.

  Thanks for the link to the interview.

• 
  Joani Reese

  Jun 10, 03:23pm

  I show this to my students every year to prove to them that they CAN memorize a poem and recite it and also that heroes come in all shapes and guises: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVu4Me_n91Y

  I love Billy Collins. I also pass out this poem before we study any poetry:

  Introduction to Poetry
  Billy Collins

  I ask them to take a poem
  and hold it up to the light
  like a color slide

  or press an ear against its hive.

  I say drop a mouse into a poem
  and watch him probe his way out,

  or walk inside the poem's room
  and feel the walls for a light switch.

  I want them to waterski
  across the surface of a poem
  waving at the author's name on the shore.

  But all they want to do
  is tie the poem to a chair with rope
  and torture a confession out of it.

  They begin beating it with a hose
  to find out what it really means.

• 
  Dolemite

  Jun 10, 03:27pm

  That *is* good!

  And very much in line with the gist of his interview.

• 
  Joani Reese

  Jun 10, 03:30pm

  When he was poet laureate, Collins began this web site for high school students and teachers. It's a great resource. He is a fine representative of the art and a tireless promoter of other poets and their work: http://www.loc.gov/poetry/180/

• 
  Lucinda Kempe

  Jun 10, 04:36pm

  James L: I love what you said. Yes, both Collins and Updike snicker. Some of the best writing is social commentary. Wait, isn't it

  all

  social commentary?

• 
  J. Mykell Collinz

  Jun 11, 02:51pm

  "Perhaps his informal side is best reflected by his given name: he was christened William after his father, thus Willy for a while, and then Billy, which he has kept as his nom de plume as much in reaction to the pretentiousness of those writers who use their initials, or one initial and a given name, as in W. James Collins, or whatever."

  Well, yeah, I thought of using 'Jackie Collins,' which is how I was referred to as a boy, avoiding the pretentiousness of 'J. Mykell Collinz,' but another writer, some woman, is already using it.

  I like Billy's 'Introduction to Poetry.' Thanks for posting it JP.

  And thank you Matt, for the link to Billy's interview.

  Maybe I'll try some poetry myself one of these days, nothing else seems to be working. And I'll get rid of that pretentious name.

  'Johnny Collins,' that might work.

• 
  Andrew Stancek

  Jun 12, 05:29pm

  I am, too often, surrounded by sneerers. People who cannot, will not appreciate anything but the most avant-garde, the most revolutionary. I allow them to sneer and I don't argue with them. And I go check out the object of their upturned noses and often find great enjoyment. So it is with Billy Collins. I have been enjoying him for years. He is fun and he is serious.

  Thanks, Matt, for the link, and JLD for your comment.

• 
  Doug Bond

  Jun 13, 06:58am

  Saw Billy Collins read here in San Francisco, City Arts & Lectures series...just simply a wonderful, wonderful evening. Too easy to discount, due to accessibility; he is a bard and very entertaining. There's a YouTube of Bill Murray introducing him reading in NYC that i'd seen too, and then there's this little poem, as good, or better in less space, than Cheever or Yates in Revolutionary Road:
  http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19753

• 
  Linda Simoni-Wastila

  Jun 13, 10:59am

  Matt, thanks for this read in PR and Doug, thanks for the link, too. The wonderful thing about Billy Collins' work is you can love one piece and hate the next, so he continually surprises. I read most everything I stumble across of his, if for no other reason to figure out how I feel about the collective body of work. Beyond the work, I think the dude is awesome--a generous bard. Peace...

• 
  James Claffey

  Jun 13, 02:20pm

  great stuff!

• 
  R-C-V

  Jun 18, 12:00am

  For the four lines:

  into the darkness of the throat
  where you can see universes created
  and destroyed, world spinning in and out of being,
  a cosmos blossoming then closing its petals.

  I'd find it hard to dislike him. I've never sought out his writing. But I love that.

• 
  Jim V

  Jun 18, 12:11pm

  Matt, you're making a mistake. Collins is one of our best poets. I say this as someone who was reading his poetry a full decade before anyone ever heard of him. I think I first started reading him in '90? '91? In a book called Stand Up Poets, writers influences by Edward Field, and also contained people like Bukowski, Locklin, Koertge, Lummis. Edited by Charles Harper Webb.

  Perhaps for this reason I never got the bandwagon blues about the guy. He was always a poet I loved, even when no one else did.

  His writing is rightfully popular. He isn't so much "easy," as not obtuse. There's a lot of humor involved, but underneath the humor is a serious mind dealing with serious topics.

  Don't judge him before you've read him. Disliking something merely because it's popular is as a bad way to go about your business as disliking something merely because it isn't cool. At one time, Shakespeare and Dickens were popular authors.

  By the way, I still think The Apple that Astonished Paris is his best book.

• 
  Dolemite

  Jun 18, 12:36pm

  "Don't judge him before you've read him."

  I was ADMITTING I was being a prejudiced fool!

  ;-)

• 
  Jim V

  Jun 20, 05:23pm

  Oh, I know Matt. I was just reinforcing your assessment! :)

• 
  Dolemite

  Jun 20, 06:17pm

  heh!

  (you a baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad boi!)

• 
  See ya

  Jun 23, 06:18pm

  Billy Collins is a great poet. And I say that as a fan of Bukowski's work, which even he said was just writing with random line breaks thrown in. But Billy, no, he has that something. Can't put my finger on it. But he HAS it.

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