Billy for Bogus

[twelveoone]

just pulling your leg pat, I'd like to agree with you two posts up, 'cept I don't remember reading Faulkner, I think I remember reading Hemingway, don't remember much. But Steinbeck, that I remember!

But Note: Eliot almost as a Trademark uses strange words, bizarre references - part of the fun, I think. Just have to very careful not to overdo, I think it's a good tool, if used properly.
Like a patient etherised upon a table; (besides being funny, this may be the crux of the poem, his "message")

 

[Angeline]

Not every poet is right for every reader. If that were true, we'd all be in lockstep, liking the same poets. Why you, Bogusbrig, would love Yeats as much as I do--and we know that's not the case.

It seems to me that this forum has become, of late, about defending why some writers are better than other writers. To some extent I understand this. For example, I think Senna Jawa is always cogent in explaining why lines or words in poems do or don't work (not that I always agree with him). Still, why should I--or any of us--need to justify to anyone that TS Eliot is definitively better than Sylvia Plath or Alfred Lord Tennyson? You might like one or another better than me, but isn't that to be expected? We're different people.

Having said that I'll tell you what I like about Billy Collins. I think he's an accessible poet. I think people who normally shrink from poetry can read him and say "ah. I've experienced that. I understand that." I'm the anti-elitist in poetry and life. And yet Billy is no Hallmark card poet. He's warm and funny and takes the most common subjects and turns them into universal experiences. I guess for me he's sort of an Everyman. And that's not shallow; that's good, imo.

 

[twelveoone]

Not every poet is right for every reader. If that were true, we'd all be in lockstep, liking the same poets. Why you, Bogusbrig, would love Yeats as much as I do--and we know that's not the case.

It seems to me that this forum has become, of late, about defending why some writers are better than other writers. To some extent I understand this. For example, I think Senna Jawa is always cogent in explaining why lines or words in poems do or don't work (not that I always agree with him). Still, why should I--or any of us--need to justify to anyone that TS Eliot is definitively better than Sylvia Plath or Alfred Lord Tennyson? You might like one or another better than me, but isn't that to be expected? We're different people.

Having said that I'll tell you what I like about Billy Collins. I think he's an accessible poet. I think people who normally shrink from poetry can read him and say "ah. I've experienced that. I understand that." I'm the anti-elitist in poetry and life. And yet Billy is no Hallmark card poet. He's warm and funny and takes the most common subjects and turns them into universal experiences. I guess for me he's sort of an Everyman. And that's not shallow; that's good, imo.

Yo, wad I say three posts up? He's funny...

 

[Angeline]

Yo, wad I say three posts up? He's funny...

Yes, dear. I saw that.

Another Reason Why I Don't Keep A Gun In The House

The neighbors' dog will not stop barking.
He is barking the same high, rhythmic bark
that he barks every time they leave the house.
They must switch him on on their way out.

The neighbors' dog will not stop barking.
I close all the windows in the house
and put on a Beethoven symphony full blast
but I can still hear him muffled under the music,
barking, barking, barking,

and now I can see him sitting in the orchestra,
his head raised confidently as if Beethoven
had included a part for barking dog.

When the record finally ends he is still barking,
sitting there in the oboe section barking,
his eyes fixed on the conductor who is
entreating him with his baton

while the other musicians listen in respectful
silence to the famous barking dog solo,
that endless coda that first established
Beethoven as an innovative genius.

 

[twelveoone]

see, he's funny. A bit overdone for the punchline, perhaps BWTH

 

[bogusbrig]

It seems to me that this forum has become, of late, about defending why some writers are better than other writers. To some extent I understand this. For example, I think Senna Jawa is always cogent in explaining why lines or words in poems do or don't work (not that I always agree with him). Still, why should I--or any of us--need to justify to anyone that TS Eliot is definitively better than Sylvia Plath or Alfred Lord Tennyson? You might like one or another better than me, but isn't that to be expected? We're different people.

I think batting poet's work about on the threads apart from being fun and good sport, one also gets insights into a poet's work one might have missed. One just has to keep an open mind, I am however, still perplexed by Plath's reputation.

As for Collins, I find him a pleasant enough read but I wasn't sure if his humour was intentional or not but it seems the concensus is that his humour is intentional. However, unlike some poets, he hasn't set my imagination on fire yet, maybe that J'ne sais quoi has yet to hit me.

 

[Angeline]

I think batting poet's work about on the threads apart from being fun and good sport, one also gets insights into a poet's work one might have missed. One just has to keep an open mind, I am however, still perplexed by Plath's reputation.

As for Collins, I find him a pleasant enough read but I wasn't sure if his humour was intentional or not but it seems the concensus is that his humour is intentional. However, unlike some poets, he hasn't set my imagination on fire yet, maybe that J'ne sais quoi has yet to hit me.

Nothing wrong with that. He doesn't set me aflame with muse either...but I enjoy reading him. I find him a pleasant diversion. Sometimes all I want from a poem is to be pleasantly diverted.

Don't mind me though--I've worked, with very little break, for about 16 days straight. Billy may be as much as I can handle right now.

 

[twelveoone]

I think batting poet's work about on the threads apart from being fun and good sport, one also gets insights into a poet's work one might have missed. One just has to keep an open mind, I am however, still perplexed by Plath's reputation.

As for Collins, I find him a pleasant enough read but I wasn't sure if his humour was intentional or not but it seems the concensus is that his humour is intentional. However, unlike some poets, he hasn't set my imagination on fire yet, maybe that J'ne sais quoi has yet to hit me.

Well he ain't
Monty Python

but no Hallmark card poet either

 

[jthserra]

The Trouble with Poetry

The Trouble with Poetry
...............Billy Collins

The trouble with poetry, I realized
as I walked along a beach one night--
cold Florida sand under my bare feet,
a show of stars in the sky--

the trouble with poetry is
that it encourages the writing of more poetry,
more guppies crowding the fish tank
more baby rabbits
hopping out of their mothers into the dewy grass.

And how will it ever end?
unless the day finally arrives
when we have compared everything in the world
to everything else in the world,

and there is nothing left to do
but quietly close our notebooks
and sit with our hands folded on our desks.

Poetry fills me with joy
and I rise like a feather in the wind.
Poetry fills me with sorrow
and I sink like a chain flung from a bridge.

But mostly poetry fills me
with the urge to write more poetry,
to sit in the dark and wait for a little flame
to appear at the tip of my pencil.

And along with that, the longing to steal
to break into the poems of others
with a flashlight and a ski mask.

And what an unmerry band of thieves we are,
cut-purses, common shoplifters,
I thought to myself
as a cold wave swirled around my feet
and the lighthouse moved its megaphone over the sea,
which is an image I stole directly
from Lawrence Ferlinghetti--
to be perfectly honest for a moment--

the bicycling poet of San Francisco
whose little amusement park of a book
I carried in a side pocket of my uniform
up and down the trecherous halls of high school.


Billy Collins from The Trouble with Poetry...


jim : )

 

[jthserra]

I had the opportunity to see him speak

at the Library of Congress about three years ago. Not only is his poetry accessable, but the man is too, so personable, humorous without any hint of condescencion. He did not read his poetry, instead spoke about the many odd things we do in writing poetry and the reasons we do these things. He basically talked of the challenge we give ourselves when we go to write a poem, selecting between the use of meter, rhyme, forms or those other strange things we do in creating the poem.

Of course he touched on snippets of his poems and offered some wonderful anecdotes gleaned from his many workshops. It was an entertaining, but also educational evening and I can't help but think that it would do many poets a lot of good to hear what he had to say on the subject.

He was the first "famous" poet I had an opportunity to hear and later shake hands with (while getting a couple of books autographed).


jim : )

 

[BooMerengue]

just pulling your leg pat, I'd like to agree with you two posts up, 'cept

I don't remember reading Faulkner,

I think I remember reading Hemingway, don't remember much. But Steinbeck, that I remember!

But Note: Eliot almost as a Trademark uses strange words, bizarre references - part of the fun, I think. Just have to very careful not to overdo, I think it's a good tool, if used properly.
Like a patient etherised upon a table; (besides being funny, this may be the crux of the poem, his "message")

Those words jumped out at me and jarred me. Are you American, 1201? Were you educated in America? I'm not being smart assy- I really don't know anything about you. I know it's not just me; Faulkner has a pretty large following. I find it difficult to believe, tho, that you haven't read anything of his. I think you should- I think everyone should.

 

[twelveoone]

The Trouble with Poetry
...............Billy Collins


....
the trouble with poetry is
that it encourages the writing of more poetry,
more guppies crowding the fish tank
more baby rabbits
hopping out of their mothers into the dewy grass.

And how will it ever end?
unless the day finally arrives
when we have compared everything in the world
to everything else in the world,



And along with that, the longing to steal
to break into the poems of others
with a flashlight and a ski mask.

And what an unmerry band of thieves we are,
cut-purses, common shoplifters,
I thought to myself
as a cold wave swirled around my feet
and the lighthouse moved its megaphone over the sea,
which is an image I stole directly
from Lawrence Ferlinghetti--
to be perfectly honest for a moment--


Billy Collins from The Trouble with Poetry...


jim : )

and how can you not love, lines like those.

 

[twelveoone]

Those words jumped out at me and jarred me. Are you American, 1201? Were you educated in America? I'm not being smart assy- I really don't know anything about you. I know it's not just me; Faulkner has a pretty large following. I find it difficult to believe, tho, that you haven't read anything of his. I think you should- I think everyone should.

no
no
and I don't remember - I forget alot.
hum a few bars, maybe it will jog something
and why do tell? Maybe you should take up the arguement with Pat and Rybka.

 

[Angeline]

at the Library of Congress about three years ago. Not only is his poetry accessable, but the man is too, so personable, humorous without any hint of condescencion. He did not read his poetry, instead spoke about the many odd things we do in writing poetry and the reasons we do these things. He basically talked of the challenge we give ourselves when we go to write a poem, selecting between the use of meter, rhyme, forms or those other strange things we do in creating the poem.

Of course he touched on snippets of his poems and offered some wonderful anecdotes gleaned from his many workshops. It was an entertaining, but also educational evening and I can't help but think that it would do many poets a lot of good to hear what he had to say on the subject.

He was the first "famous" poet I had an opportunity to hear and later shake hands with (while getting a couple of books autographed).


jim : )

There used to be a site with a video interview with him--about an hour long--giving a speech to some national association. He was much as you describe him: warm and unassuming and came acrosss as absolutely in love with writing poetry. He struck me as a sweet, unpretentious man. I was really impressed with that.

I'll see if I can find the site--if it's still around (it was a few years ago that I saw it), I'll post the link.

 

[Tzara]

http://forum.wgbh.org/wgbh/forum.php?lecture_id=1091

 

[Angeline]

http://forum.wgbh.org/wgbh/forum.php?lecture_id=1091

Can you find me some good Ted Berrigan next?






(Actually, there's some very cool audio Ted and lots of others at the UBU site.)

 

[Tzara]

Can you find me some good Ted Berrigan next?






(Actually, there's some very cool audio Ted and lots of others at the UBU site.)

Will Ted reading The Sonnets do?

 

[Angeline]

Will Ted reading The Sonnets do?

Yes. Too bad I'm already in love.

PS--Ever read his On the Level Everyday? It's wondrous.


PSS Here's a thank-you gift. You said you like jazz, right?

 

[BooMerengue]

no
no
and I don't remember - I forget alot.
hum a few bars, maybe it will jog something
and why do tell? Maybe you should take up the arguement with Pat and Rybka.

Sorry- being the Arrogant American that I am, I just assumed you were one, too. I don't suppose non Americans would be interested in him especially.

hum a few bars?? Lemme see...ahem... (in a deep dark southern drawl...

As I Lay Dying

The Sound and the Fury

Light In August

Absalom, Absalom! (my favorite)

The Reivers (Great movie!)

and....

If there be grief, then let it be but rain,
And this but silver grief for grieving's sake,
If these green woods be dreaming here to wake
Within my heart, if I should rouse again.

But I shall sleep, for where is any death
While in these blue hills slumbrous overhead
I'm rooted like a tree? Though I be dead,
This earth that holds me fast will find me breath.

Just give him a try...

I’m a failed poet. Maybe every novelist wants to write poetry first, finds he can’t and then tries the short story which is the most demanding form after poetry. And failing at that, only then does he take up novel writing.

Interview with Jean Stein, Lion in the Garden, p. 238

 

[Tzara]

Yes. Too bad I'm already in love.

PS--Ever read his On the Level Everyday? It's wondrous.


PSS Here's a thank-you gift. You said you like jazz, right?

It is never too bad to be in love. I am. Have been for 25 years. Why shouldn't you be?

But thank the Googliers, not me. Took all of thirty seconds to find it. It did lead me to also find my beloved Dr. K reading from 1000 Avante Garde Plays. Hilarious. So thus am I rewarded. So thus am I content.

I looked at Amazon about the Berrigan book. You should know I haven't read it--I've been reading contemporary poetry for 90 days. Sigh. Yet another line on the "to be read" list. It looks interesting, though. I have been reading Richard Hugo's The Triggering Town and that has been very rewarding.

Who likes jazz? Moi?

Miles Davis

sparse sharp notes slice
air like a cataract knife
held in a surgeon's feathery hand

repeat chorus​

Langston Hughes? Well, OK. (Writes another name on the "to be read" list. Heavy, heavy sigh.) At least there's musical accompaniment.

 

[Angeline]

It is never too bad to be in love. I am. Have been for 25 years. Why shouldn't you be?

But thank the Googliers, not me. Took all of thirty seconds to find it. It did lead me to also find my beloved Dr. K reading from 1000 Avante Garde Plays. Hilarious. So thus am I rewarded. So thus am I content.

I looked at Amazon about the Berrigan book. You should know I haven't read it--I've been reading contemporary poetry for 90 days. Sigh. Yet another line on the "to be read" list. It looks interesting, though. I have been reading Richard Hugo's The Triggering Town and that has been very rewarding.

Who likes jazz? Moi?

Miles Davis

sparse sharp notes slice
air like a cataract knife
held in a surgeon's feathery hand

repeat chorus​

Langston Hughes? Well, OK. (Writes another name on the "to be read" list. Heavy, heavy sigh.) At least there's musical accompaniment.

You probably know more Langston Hughes than you realize. The title of the play Raisin in the Sun comes from his poem Harlem: A Dream Deferred:

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun
Or fester like a sore—

And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over—

Like a syrupy sweet?


Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

I love the site I linked because you really get the blues rhythms of Hughes's writing hearing him read (not to mention that he's backed by Charles Mingus on some of the poems--and by the jazz critic/musician Leonard Feather on others).

Anyway, I was kidding about the love thing. I'm very very happy to be in love, lol, but I thought you were already a Berrigan fan, and they're pretty rare in my experience. I'm always delighted when I find one. I've been crazy about Ted Berrigan for many years, not only his poetry, but his opinions about how to write. I find him funny and insightful. He has great common sense, imo. The book is a terrific read: it's colloquial, transcriptions of various lectures of his. In his meandering way he makes excellent points about why people write poetry.

There's an excerpt from the book--one of the lectures--online.

But this is a thread about Billy Collins. I digress...as usual.

 

[bogusbrig]

If there be grief, then let it be but rain,
And this but silver grief for grieving's sake,
If these green woods be dreaming here to wake
Within my heart, if I should rouse again.

But I shall sleep, for where is any death
While in these blue hills slumbrous overhead
I'm rooted like a tree? Though I be dead,
This earth that holds me fast will find me breath.

Just a thought Boo but if these lines appeared in New Poems tomorrow do you you think they would be recognized as being something special? Hmm I shouldn't have mentioned this and tried.

I'm of the mind that a lot of writers in the canon are pretty ordinary but we don't read what they really write because we read their reputation and then their words.

 

[PatCarrington]

Just a thought Boo but if these lines appeared in New Poems tomorrow do you you think they would be recognized as being something special? Hmm I shouldn't have mentioned this and tried.

I'm of the mind that a lot of writers in the canon are pretty ordinary but we don't read what they really write because we read their reputation and then their words.

poetry like that is probably what he was referring to when he said:

...I’m a failed poet. Maybe every novelist wants to write poetry first, finds he can’t and then tries the short story which is the most demanding form after poetry. And failing at that, only then does he take up novel writing.

his lion-like reputation is for his prose, not his poetry.

 

[BooMerengue]

poetry like that is probably what he was referring to when he said:

...I’m a failed poet. Maybe every novelist wants to write poetry first, finds he can’t and then tries the short story which is the most demanding form after poetry. And failing at that, only then does he take up novel writing.

his lion-like reputation is for his prose, not his poetry.

Thanks, Pat. You're right.

 

[annaswirls]

Just a thought Boo but if these lines appeared in New Poems tomorrow do you you think they would be recognized as being something special? .

Pablo Nerudo appeared one day in the new poems and well, sans e. I did give it a rave review, though before realizing eh hem, that it was him...

okay it was early, you do not have to get up That early to fool me anyway.

and a young woman told me to check it out and I felt like a fool. least I mentioned the poem in new poems reviews