Ballistics: Poems
by Billy Collins
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Book Summary Information
Author: Billy CollinsEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-09-09
ISBN: 1400064910
Number of pages: 128
Publisher: Random House
Book Reviews of Ballistics: Poems
Book Review: "The class clown in the schoolhouse of American Poetry." *
Summary: 4 Stars
In an interview in June 2006 for "Guernica Magazine" *, Billy Collins talked about his conscious decision to move from being a serious and difficult to understand poet to one who wrote clear, accessible poems, "I think I kind of bought into the assumption that poetry had to be extremely gloomy and incomprehensible, or nearly so. And when I wrote I took on the role of the despondent and difficult to understand person. Whereas in life, I was easy to understand, to the point of being simple-minded maybe.
The change came I would say when I began to dare to be clear, because I think clarity is the real risk in poetry because you are exposed. You're out in the open field. You're actually saying things that are comprehensible, and it's easy to criticize something you understand."
OK...I confess: I like his poetry because it is so understandable. A professor of English I once had looked down on poets who were easy to understand and dismissed them as being either lazy or lacking in talent or intellectual light-weights or all three. He'd sometimes say things about a poem written by a poet he didn't particularly care for as being "mellifluous and written with pastels." I'm sure, if he's still teaching, he's saying that to "unsophisticated" undergrads (just like I was back then) about the poetry of Billy Collins. Fortunately, I've grown up and am still unsophisticated enough to enjoy poetry that I can understand and even chuckle at knowing the poet is saying something funny on purpose. Such is the poetry of Billy Collins, for me at least.
I do own most of his poetry books and enjoy many of his poems. The reason I gave BALLISTICS only 4 stars instead of 5 is because I don't think the poems contained within are as good as those in previous books. I do like "Addendum" (p.70), especially the first stanza: "What I forgot to tell you in that last poem/ if you were paying attention at all/ was that I really did love her at the time." It gets my attention right off and then the poem goes on to a remembrance of a love long since over, but still pleasant to recall. On the other side of the poetic coin is a very short poem called "Divorce" (p.98) that is only 18 words (4 lines) total and seems silly to me: "Once, two spoons in bed,/ now tined forks/ across a granite table/ and the knives they have hired." It's got the feeling of something dashed off while sipping coffee at the breakfast table. Here, I think, the poet tries too hard to be cute.
My favorite book of Collins' poems is THE ART OF DROWNING. I like the poem "Philosophy" (pp.69-70) in particular. "I used to sit in the cafe of existentialism,/ lost in a blue cloud of cigarette smoke,/ contemplating the suicide a tiny Frenchman/ might commit by leaping from the rim of my brandy glass." He goes on to write about other philosophers and schools of philosophical thought with tongue firmly imbedded in cheek. There are poems in that volume dealing with such earthbound topics as jazz, food, cigarettes, poetry workshops, reading in a hammock...and every one is comprehensible.
My opinions aside, I do recommend BALLISTICS to Billy Collins fans and to anyone who mistakenly thinks poetry is supposed to be stuffy and just for eggheads or pompous college profs. To those sophisticates out there, I say, open this small 110 page volume of verse and enjoy!
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