Rachel+Thurston+-+Billy+Collins

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. --Billy Collins

“Introduction to Poetry:” The title itself tells the reader what the poem’s about – how to read and understand a poem. The first stanza further introduces this idea when the narrator, most likely Collins asks his students “to take a poem and hold it up to the light like a color slide.” This vivid imagery of readers having to squint and focus to see the slide clearly is a metaphor for the multiple readings and acute interpretation required to understand the meaning of a poem.

The next stanza, or line, of the poem compares poetry to a beehive. It infers that while it might be challenging to fully grasp the meaning of a poem, it is still an achievable goal – as is listening to the calming buzz of a beehive, despite the potential physical harm.

The third and fourth stanzas use two actors: a mouse and a person. Both refer to blindly searching for something, “watch[ing] him probe his way out” and “feel[ing] the walls for a light switch.” This is a metaphor for the maze of frustration and cluelessness many readers feel when trying to understand a poem, while also commenting on the light at the end of the tunnel (the satisfaction of figuring out the poem’s meaning).

The fifth stanza expands on the aforementioned satisfaction when the narrator explains his hope for the reader to “waterski across the surface of a poem waving at the author’s name on the shore.” By comparing poetry to a lake, a place that generally triggers joy and excitement, the narrator suggests that interpreting a poem can be enjoyable, if done correctly.

The final two stanzas, however, take a sharp turn from the positive imagery and diction above. In reality, the narrator says, “all they want to do is tie the poem to a chair with rope and torture a confession out of it.” He likens the poem to a prisoner, a negative image almost impossible for the reader to overlook. By utilizing this negative image and diction, then, Collins is able to add a mocking, humorous tone to the poem. He spotlights the poor attitudes of his and other students in order to alert the reader to the error in his or her ways. Collins explains that “beating it with a hose” will not give the reader the true meaning of the poem. Rather, he elucidates that the reader should be patient, imaginative, and attentive when reading a poem.

I chose this poem for a couple of reasons. First, it is one of Collins’ most well-known and highly-regarded poems so I felt I would be remiss not to include it. Second, I see this poem as a criticism of the modern education system. We are taught to memorize, not to analyze and understand, and I strongly believe that system is flawed. Actually experiencing and understanding what we learn – having a strong depth of knowledge – is more important than a memorized jumble of facts any day of the week.

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The First Dream
The Wind is ghosting around the house tonight and as I lean against the door of sleep I begin to think about the first person to dream, how quiet he must have seemed the next morning

as the others stood around the fire draped in the skins of animals talking to each other only in vowels, for this was long before the invention of consonants.

He might have gone off by himself to sit on a rock and look into the mist of a lake as he tried to tell himself what had happened, how he had gone somewhere without going,

how he had put his arms around the neck of a beast that the others could touch only after they had killed it with stones, how he felt its breath on his bare neck.

Then again, the first dream could have come to a woman, though she would behave, I suppose, much the same way, moving off by herself to be alone near water,

except that the curve of her young shoulders and the tilt of her downcast head would make her appear to be terribly alone, and if you were there to notice this,

you might have gone down as the first person to ever fall in love with the sadness of another. --Billy Collins

The poem opens with the narrator, about to fall asleep, interrupted by a thought. He wonders about the first dream, more specifically, the first person to have that dream. "How quiet he must have seemed the next morning;" after all, such a new experience must have been scary. A normal night of sleep turned into a roller-coaster-like subconscious adventure - or horror story. Nevertheless, it was an inexplicable night beyond the dreamer's control.

The second stanza focuses not on the dreamer, but on the people around him. The narrator paints a picture of the setting – a community of cave people, maybe? Cave people “draped in the skins of animals,” hundreds of years ago. The narrator shows just how long ago this dream occurred by saying that it was “long before the invention of consonants.” This is clearly before the invention of language, meaning that the narrator is referring to a primitive society.

The third stanza refocuses the reader on the dreamer and the isolation he must have felt. The narrator uses this stanza to pose the possibility of a male dreamer. The male dreamer “might have gone off by himself to sit on a rock and look into the mist of a lake” to figure out what just happened. The fourth stanza continues this strain of thought as the male dreamer recalls his dream. The unrealistic nature of the dream, the way he touched a dead beast and still “felt its breath on his bare neck,” made it impossible for him to share the dream. After all, how does one communicate a dream to other cave people when one can merely grunt, motion, and draw (especially when the concept of dreaming is so unheard of)?

The fifth stanza changes the gender of the dreamer because it “could have come to a woman.” Although the experience would have been similar (“she would behave…the same way…moving off by herself to be alone near water”), the appearance would have been different. “The curve of her young shoulders and the tilt of her downcast head would make her appear to be terribly alone.” Inevitably, a man would try to comfort her and would ask (in his own way) what she was upset about. Then, maybe the dream would have been communicated, as the female dreamer attempted to tell him about her subconscious adventure.

The final stanza transitions in style from quatrains to a couplet. This transition in style is also representative of the change in theme of the poem. Above, much of the focus is on the dream. However, in this final couplet, the theme changes to love and sadness as the man learning about the woman’s dream empathizes with her.

I found this poem especially intriguing because of its subject. Materializing the reaction to the first dream is hard to fathom because it must have been such an anomaly. It seems, even, like the sort of event society would be skeptical of and would go as far as to publicly ridicule. It made me think about the cynical and skeptical nature of society as a whole.

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The Art Of Drowning
I wonder how it all got started, this business about seeing your life flash before your eyes while you drown, as if panic, or the act of submergence, could startle time into such compression, crushing decades in the vice of your desperate, final seconds.

After falling off a steamship or being swept away in a rush of floodwaters, wouldn't you hope for a more leisurely review, an invisible hand turning the pages of an album of photographs- you up on a pony or blowing out candles in a conic hat.

How about a short animated film, a slide presentation? Your life expressed in an essay, or in one model photograph? Wouldn't any form be better than this sudden flash? Your whole existence going off in your face in an eyebrow-singeing explosion of biography- nothing like the three large volumes you envisioned.

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,

a quick blur of curved silver darting away, having nothing to do with your life or your death. The tide will take you, or the lake will accept it all as you sink toward the weedy disarray of the bottom, leaving behind what you have already forgotten, the surface, now overrun with the high travel of clouds. --Billy Collins

Collins opens “The Art of Drowning” with a question: “I wonder how it all got started.” He questions the way, in death, we believe that our lives flash before us as we’re enveloped in fear. The first stanza utilizes words with negative connotations like “panic,” “crushing,” and “desperate” to create an image of a cruel, feared end to life in the reader’s mind.

In the second stanza, Collins shifts his tone to pose an alternative way to experience those final moments. Instead of a quick, meaningless “flash,” he suggests “a more leisurely review, an invisible hand turning the pages of an album of photographs.” This way, death becomes a joyful experience where one reflects on the happy life he or she lived, rather than a brutal, taking away of those good memories. Furthermore, Collins uses almost romantic images of drowning (“falling off a steamship or being swept away in a rush of floodwaters”) so the reader can envision the art of death, rather than the harshness of drowning in a pool or bathtub.

The third stanza expands on this idea of “a more leisurely review” in death. Collins introduces more images of the experience death could be (“a short animated film, a slide presentation”). He argues that “any form [would] be better than this sudden flash” because that flash is like an explosion that one would never see coming. This image of an explosion furthers Collins’ argument that death should bring happiness, not fear, because the explosion connotes such negative images of war.

The fourth and fifth stanzas leave the aforementioned romanticization of death behind in an attempt to convince the reader of the reality of death. Collins explains that while “survivors would have us believe in…some bolt of truth,” our death is an unimportant event. In actuality, the only “flash” we might see is a fish, “a quick blur of curved silver darting away,” unaffected by one’s death. “As you sink toward the weedy disarray of the bottom,” the world will continue on without you, and without giving you the album of photographs from your life you thought you deserved. “The surface, now overrun with the high travel of clouds,” continues where life ended. Because drowning looks to the future without the fears one had before, the tales of the survivors with a new lease on life are true. Now, those people are able to live a full life free of fear.

As someone who has experienced death, I read this poem inquisitively. Because of my experiences with death, this is a subject I have often contemplated. Collins' perspective that death should be not a negative experience but one filled with contentment was refreshing. Society too often views death as an end; but, to those of us who believe in eternity, it is simply a beginning. Billy Collins' "The Art of Drowning" embodies this viewpoint perfectly and gives hope to those who turn skeptical of eternity when faced with death.

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Flames
Smokey the Bear heads into the autumn woods with a red can of gasoline and a box of wooden matches.

His ranger's hat is cocked at a disturbing angle. His brown fur gleams under the high sun as his paws, the size of catcher's mitts, crackle into the distance.

He is sick of dispensing warnings to the careless, the half-wit camper, the dumbbell hiker.

He is going to show them how a professional does it. --Billy Collins

“Flames” is one of Collins’ more cynical poems. Filled with what can only be described as cruel irony, the poem describes a bitter, annoyed Smokey the Bear (the cherished forest-fire-fighting bear we all know and love from our childhoods). This first stanza is used to set up two things: the new character of Smokey and the cynical tone for the poem as a whole. Collins opens the poem as “Smokey…heads into the autumn woods with…gasoline and…matches.” These are very clearly the items one would use to start, not extinguish, a forest fire. Immediately, the reader imagines a dark Smokey, bent on committing some terrible atrocity. Following his perversion of a beloved childhood hero, Collins’ cynicism is abundantly clear at the close of this stanza.

The second stanza goes on to describe the villainous Smokey’s physical appearance. Everything about him, it seems, is different (and not in a good way): “his ranger’s had is cocked at a disturbing angle” and “his paws…crackle into the distance.” This description of Smokey makes his intentions very clear to the reader (if there was any previous doubt). He comes off as sort of a “bad-boy” who instills fear into anyone who dares to cross him. There is, at this point, no doubt that he is going to start a forest-fire.

The third stanza explains Smokey’s intentions. As the reader knows, Smokey has been the national mascot for fire safety for years. However, Smokey has grown exasperated with – what he calls – “the careless, the half-wit camper, [and] the dumbbell hiker.” The adjectives used in the previous quote show Smokey’s irritation and effectively explain his motives.

The fourth stanza is a sort of smug conclusion to Smokey’s decision: “He is going to show them how a professional does it.” Collins uses a sense of cruel irony to show Smokey’s rationale: if people refuse to listen to him, maybe they will respond to the disaster he has been preaching for so many years. Collins’ “lighter” diction throughout this poem also send a message to the idiotic people in the world who ignore warnings like that preached by Smokey the bear.

I especially enjoyed this poem, not only because I am often a wonderfully sarcastic, cynical person, but because of the brilliant way Collins used sarcasm to deliver his good natured message. I rarely understand how people can ignore serious, life-threatening warnings. The way that Collins speaks to those people in “Flames” is an interesting medium to try to access those people through. Also, there's nothing like a good verbal punch in the gut of the stupid.

media type="youtube" key="7vmEzMUjPvo" height="315" width="420" T The poem opens with the narrator, about to fall asleep, interrupted by a thought. He wonders about the first dream, more specifically, the first person to have that dream. "How quiet he must have seemed the next morning;" after all, such a new experience must have been scary. A normal night of sleep turned into a roller-coaster-like subconscious adventure - or horror story. Nevertheless, it was an inexplicable night beyond the dreamer's control.