[New-Poetry] MFA

[jfq at myuw.net]

I generally really hate Billy Collins, but this poem does make me smile and isn't terrible. I remember the first time I read it and was thinking as I'd almost finished it "Wow, has Billy Collins really made it all the way through a poem without some sort of invocation of a small animal of some kind?" And then I read the bit about the mouses voice, and i laughed out loud. It also makes me think of Charles Bukowski's poem "Creative Writing Class." I'm sure there's fruitful comparison to be made between the two poems, but I don't have Last Night of the Earth Poems here, so I'll leave it at that.



On Mon, 2 Oct 2006, David Graham wrote:

>
> Workshop
>
> I might as well begin by saying how much I like the title.
> It gets me right away because I'm in a workshop now
> so immediately the poem has my attention,
> like the ancient mariner grabbing me by the sleeve.
>
> And I like the first couple of stanzas,
> the way they establish this mode of self-pointing
> that runs through the whole poem
> and tells us that words are food thrown down
> on the ground for other words to eat.
> I can almost taste the tail of the snake
> in its own mouth,
> if you know what I mean.
>
> But what I'm not sure about is the voice
> which sounds in places very casual, very blue jeans,
> but other times seems standoffish,
> professorial in the worst sense of the word
> like the poem is blowing smoke in my face.
> But maybe that's just what it wants to do.
>
> What I did find engaging were the middle stanzas,
> especially the fourth one.
> I like the image of clouds flying like lozenges
> which gives me a very clear picture.
> And I really like how this drawbridge operator
> just appears out of the blue
> with his feet up on the iron railing
> and his fishing pole jigging ‹ I like jigging ‹
> a hook in the slow industrial canal below.
> I love slow industrial canal below. All those l's.
>
> Maybe it's just me,
> but the next stanza is where I start to have a problem.
> I mean how can the evening bump into the stars?
> And what is an obbligato of snow?
> Also, I roam the decaffeinated streets.
> At this point I'm lost. I need help.
>
> The other thing that throws me off,
> and maybe this is just me,
> is the way the scene keeps shifting around.
> First, we're in this big aerodrome
> and the speaker is inspecting a row of dirigibles,
> which makes me think this could be a dream.
> Then he takes us into his garden,
> the part with the dahlias and the coiling hose,
> though that's nice, the coiling hose,
> but then I'm not sure where we're supposed to be.
> The rain and the mint green light,
> that makes it feel outdoors, but what about this wallpaper?
> Or is it a kind of indoor cemetery?
> There's something about death going on here.
>
> In fact, I'm starting to wonder if what we have here
> is really two poems, or three, or four,
> or possibly none.
>
> But then there's that last stanza, my favorite.
> This is where the poem wins me back,
> especially the lines spoken in the voice of the mouse.
> I mean we've all seen these images in cartoons before,
> but I still love the details he uses
> when he's describing where he lives.
> The perfect little arch of an entrance in the baseboard,
> the bed made out of a curled-back sardine can,
> the spool of thread for a table.
> I start thinking about how hard the mouse had to work
> night after night collecting all these things
> while the people in the house were fast asleep,
> and that gives me a very strong feeling,
> a very powerful sense of something.
> But I don't know if anyone else was feeling that.
> Maybe that was just me.
> Maybe that's just the way I read it.
>
>     Billy Collins
>     The Art of Drowning
>     University of Pittsburgh Press
>
>
>
> ====================================================
> David Graham
> grahamd at ripon.edu
> Home Page:
> http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
> Poetry Library:
> http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html
> ====================================================
>
>
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