Happy Birthday, Billy
Well, I would certainly be remiss in my duties as a devoted stalker admirer of Billy Collins if I didn’t shout out a “Happy Birthday” to him today.
Garrison Keillor – channeled by friends Joan and Sally who clued me in to this important occasion – tells me that Billy was born on this date in Queens, New York (1941).
“He’s one of the few modern poets whose books have sold more than 100,000 copies. He thinks the reason that most modern poetry isn’t popular is that it lacks humor. He said, "It’s the fault of the Romantics, who eliminated humor from poetry. Shakespeare’s hilarious, Chaucer’s hilarious. [Then] the Romantics killed off humor, and they also eliminated sex, things which were replaced by landscape. I thought that was a pretty bad trade-off, so I’m trying to write about humor and landscape, and occasionally sex."
“He was in his 40s when he published his first book, The Apple That Astonished Paris (1988), but by the end of the century he was arguably the country’s most popular poet. His new and selected poems, Sailing Alone Around the Room (2000), has sold almost 200,000 copies. His collection The Trouble with Poetry came out in 2005.”
I love it when he talks to me about poetry: “As I’m writing, I’m always reader conscious. I have one reader in mind, someone who is in the room with me, and who I’m talking to, and I want to make sure I don’t talk too fast, or too glibly. Usually I try to create a hospitable tone at the beginning of a poem. Stepping from the title to the first lines is like stepping into a canoe. A lot of things can go wrong.”
And “Moving from the position of United States poet laureate to New York State poet laureate might seem like a demotion or a drop in rank to the military-minded. It might even appear that I am heading toward eventually being crowned laureate of my Zip Code. But in fact, it is very gratifying to be honored again as a representative of poetry, this time by my native state where I grew up – more or less – and continue to live."
And, in celebration, one of my favorite poems by Billy:
LITANY
You are the bread and the knife,
The crystal goblet and the wine…
-Jacques Crickillon
You are the bread and the knife,
the crystal goblet and the wine.
You are the dew on the morning grass
and the burning wheel of the sun.
You are the white apron of the baker,
and the marsh birds suddenly in flight.
However, you are not the wind in the orchard,
the plums on the counter,
or the house of cards.
And you are certainly not the pine-scented air.
There is just no way that you are the pine-scented air.
It is possible that you are the fish under the bridge,
maybe even the pigeon on the general’s head,
but you are not even close
to being the field of cornflowers at dusk.
And a quick look in the mirror will show
that you are neither the boots in the corner
nor the boat asleep in its boathouse.
It might interest you to know,
speaking of the plentiful imagery of the world,
that I am the sound of rain on the roof.
I also happen to be the shooting star,
the evening paper blowing down an alley
and the basket of chestnuts on the kitchen table.
I am also the moon in the trees
and the blind woman’s tea cup.
But don’t worry, I’m not the bread and the knife.
You are still the bread and the knife.
You will always be the bread and the knife,
not to mention the crystal goblet and–somehow–the wine.
Happy birthday, Billy boy. My paean to your shining fantastic glory birthday card is in the mail, from my little zip code to your infinitely more shiny and eloquent one.
