Accessible Poetry

"If you find yourself as a writer thinking about posterity you should probably go out for a brisk walk or something."  Billy Collins

If you find yourself as a writer thinking about posterity you should probably go out for a brisk walk or something.

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If you find yourself as a writer thinking about posterity you should probably go out for a brisk walk or something.

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If you find yourself as a writer thinking about posterity you should probably go out for a brisk walk or something.

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Greetings to my knot of fellow Toads!

I'm lolamouse and I've crawled out of my mouse hole to introduce you (or reintroduce you if you’re already familiar) with the poetry of Billy Collins. Billy Collins (1941- ) was the U.S. Poet Laureate from 2001 – 2003. The New York Times called Collins “the most popular poet in America.”

Collins believes that poetry should be a part of everyday life. He introduced a school program called Poetry 180, an online poetry anthology for teachers to use with their students. It was named for the 180 days of the school year and for the 180 degree turn which Collins wants students to make toward poetry- listening rather than dissecting.

Introduction to Poetry

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.

Collins’s poems are often deceptively simple. He uses common language and often writes about pedestrian life experiences. His tone is witty and welcoming. Collins may directly address the reader, an ambiguous figure whom he may have faced across the breakfast table with a bowl of cereal or held a door for at the bank. Despite his easy, conversational style, his poems often take a surprising turn and address difficult and profound topics.  

Take, for example, this stanza from The Art of Drowning (1995)

…Survivors would have us believe in a brilliance

here, some bolt of truth forking across the water,

an ultimate Light before all the lights go out,

dawning on you with all its megalithic tonnage.

But if something does flash before your eyes

as you go under, it will probably be a fish…

Collins has written over a dozen books of poetry, including The Trouble With Poetry, Nine Horses, and Horoscopes for the Dead.

Every morning since you disappeared for good,
I read about you in the newspaper
along with the box scores, the weather, and all the bad news.
Some days I am reminded that today
will not be a wildly romantic time for you...

(from Horoscopes for the Dead, 2011)

To read and hear more Billy Collins, check out the Poetry Foundation website, Poets.org, and this TED talk below.

And now (finally!) the challenge:

Write a poem of the ordinary but give it a Collins-ish twist. That is, write something accessible, simple, funny, etc. but when read (maybe a second time) shows us something about the experience of life in a more profound way. Or, if that doesn’t float your boat, choose one of Collins's poems and write a response to it.