I Heart Billy Collins

Just a quick post here, Faithful Readers. You may recall my admiration for the work of American poet Billy Collins. Here's another treasure from him that came my way via my wife via a teaching colleague of hers (and neighbor of ours, too, by the way). If you've ever been either a parent or a child, you may find that this poem expresses a truth about both.


"The Lanyard"
by Billy Collins

The other day I was ricocheting slowly
off the blue walls of this room,
moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.

No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one into the past more suddenly—
a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp
by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid long thin plastic strips
into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.

I had never seen anyone use a lanyard
or wear one, if that’s what you did with them,
but that did not keep me from crossing
strand over strand again and again
until I had made a boxy
red and white lanyard for my mother.

She gave me life and milk from her breasts,
and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sick room,
lifted spoons of medicine to my lips,
laid cold face-cloths on my forehead,
and then led me out into the airy light

and taught me to walk and swim,
and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.
Here are thousands of meals, she said,
and here is clothing and a good education.
And here is your lanyard, I replied,
which I made with a little help from a counselor.

Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
strong legs, bones and teeth,
and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,
and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.
And here, I wish to say to her now,
is a smaller gift—not the worn truth

that you can never repay your mother,
but the rueful admission that when she took
the two-tone lanyard from my hand,
I was as sure as a boy could be
that this useless, worthless thing I wove
out of boredom would be enough to make us even.

Walking in a Spring Wonderland

We've been having some strange weather the past couple of days. It has snowed more or less continuously throughout the day and night. However, the daytime temperatures have been high enough to turn the snow into water upon contact with the surfaces of sidewalks, driveways, and streets. The sky right now has the same gauzy gray look it has on a mid-winter evening when it plans to shake its snowy contents out slowly all night long like sifted confectioner's sugar on an expansive sheet of cake.

This snow is different, though, in that it is heavy with its own water suspended within its dense structure, just as the liquid flavoring drizzled over an ice cone at the state fair spreads throughout the compact, icy mound without pooling in the bottom. This snow will turn to ice overnight if one doesn't shovel it off the driveway. This snow weighs a ton and sticks to the shovel and forms stubborn piles as one tries to push it to the driveway's edge.

This snow melts upon contact with one's face and upon contact with a dark surface, such as an exposed driveway, but it piles up upon contact with a light surface, such as other snow; this makes it crucial for one to shovel overnight accumulations off the driveway in order for the new day's amounts to make contact with dark, melt-inducing concrete rather than light, pile-inducing snow.

This snow means that little girls' snowpants and gloves are soaked through at the end of the day and need a trip through the clothes dryer so as not to be soggy and cold to slip on in the morning. This snow is awfully fun to play in--it is slushy and splatters when stomped in; it makes superb and dangerous snowballs that are a cross between water balloons and rocks; and it leaves clear evidence of one's presence, showing the outline and pattern of every shoe and boot step in bas-relief.

This snow inspired me to think of just the right words to describe it, and that reminded me of others who have tried to describe snow in fresh, accurate, original, thought-provoking ways. Remember: it's still April, and that's still National Poetry Month. So poke around a bit below and peruse some poems (the Frost and Whittier poems are classics, and Billy Collins' poems is, as usual, a hoot) inspired by snow.

"Dust of Snow" by Robert Frost

"Falling Snow" (anonymous)

"The Japanese Garden" by Shirley Ann Norman (check out the interesting electronic music that plays in the background)

"Snow" by David Berman

"Snow" by Jared Carter

"Snow" by E. E. Cummings

"Snow Day" by Billy Collins

"The Snow Man" by Wallace Stevens

"The Snow Storm" by Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Snow-Bound: A Winter Idyll" by John Greenleaf Whittier

"Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" by Robert Frost

sundry snow-related poems

miscellaneous snow-related poems

divers snow-related poems

April and May's Thought-Provoking Question(s)

(This one's an important enough question to merit TWO months, methinks.)

NATIONAL POETRY MONTH

Yes, April is National Poetry Month. It's a time to celebrate the beauty and power of the often-overlooked literary gem, the poem.

I'll admit: when I was in high school, and even my first years of college, I didn't "get" poetry. It was only once I started teaching English that I gave poetry the chance that it deserved to win me over. And since my change of attitude, many of my students have been inspired to create meaningful simplicity in verse.

This month's question(s): In honor of the month, what is your favorite poem? Or, who is your favorite poet? Share the favorite poem, or a poem by your favorite bard, and tell why it/he/she is your favorite.

I'll start. Here's a poem that I like by former poet laureate of the United States Billy Collins. I like it because it expresses the struggle I sometimes have with students who aren't able to enjoy a poem because they're too intent on studying it. Enjoy!


Introduction to Poetry
by Billy Collins

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.

Ah, Those Fond Medieval Memories

I Would Have Been Considered Very Attractive In The Middle Ages

For an excellent companion to the article above, read humorous American poet Billy Collins' poem "Nostalgia" here.

Budding Poet

I recently asked for and received from my beautiful wife some collections of poetry by Billy Collins; and in honor of upcoming April (National Poetry Month), I've been reading some of them aloud to my family. (Geek alert: each day of April, our family is going to read aloud poetry with one another. I know, I know: it's not quite the same as gathering around a warm television for quality family time, but it's what English teachers do with [to?] their children.)

Abigail must have been inspired by my most recent reading, because she came upstairs this morning with her own original poem written in red pen on a large sheet of blue craft paper (truly a work of both literary and visual art), and she performed an oral interpretation (very dramatic, too) of it. The best I can do for you, however, is provide the text; you will have to imagine Miss Abigail reading it aloud in all her flair and glory. (It is an acrostic, by the way, so she was working with that constraint when deciding how to begin each line.)

"Dad, Mom"

Dignity is a charm.

Awesome is a pleasure.

Daughters are your best.

My best actor.

Owesome is a sunshine.

My children are my pleasure.

P.S. Sign up to be e-mailed a poem daily throughout April. For a poem per day throughout the school year, check out Poetry 180--or Poetry Daily for one daily throughout the calendar year. Or go to your local library and check out a good, old-fashioned book of poetry. If you were trained to fear or hate poems through your analysis of them in high school, you owe it to yourself to give the genre another try. Browse a bunch of them, find some that catch your attention to re-read, follow up on favorite poets, and go from there!

Fly the Funny Skies

Because this is a month of lots of flying for me, I would like to share an airline-related poem with you--in honor of National Poetry Month (April). It's "Passengers" by Billy Collins, former U.S. poet laureate and one funny poet. Enjoy!

Swimming and Reading (But Not Simultaneously)

The girls competed in their second swim meet ever today. We got up before dawn and drove to Mandan, found the Mandan Community Center, and stationed ourselves in the bleachers near one end of the pool. Having been to only one other meet previously, we assumed this one would be similar: start early in the morning and end early in the afternoon. We had plans afterward to go shopping to use some gift cards received at Christmas and return some "wrong size" gifts, to buy some groceries for our Super Bowl party tomorrow*, and then eat supper at a restaurant that we don't have in Dickinson.

Well, sadly, the swim meet started later in the morning than the last meet and didn't end until about 5:00 P.M. That's a long time to sit in a muggy pool area, and it felt like hanging out in a sauna wearing street clothes for nine hours. But the girls had a blast. They competed in some events that they hadn't last time and some events that they had, so for those we were able to compare today's times with their previous times--and they all shaved off seconds in each event! None of the girls qualified for the state meet, but they're improving. And Hillary, who finished first in two of her heats, came pretty close to qualifying for state . . . and that was even after waiting for several seconds after the race had started to jump into the water! (She looked at the scoreboard, saw the number of the previous event still listed there, and decided she needed to wait until she saw the number of her own event . . . which they don't post until everyone has jumped into the water to start an event! Now she knows, though.)

Susan cut out in the afternoon to get some of the shopping done while I stayed behind to cheer and sweat. Afterward we had time to use my gift card at Barnes & Noble and pick up shoes at Payless before eating at Grizzly's, making a final stop at Target, getting fuel for the vehicle at Tesoro, and picking up ice cream at McDonald's on our way out of town. (Shouldn't I be getting paid for all this advertising?!) Here is what I picked up at the bookstore (thank you, Cassie and Nick, for the gift card!):

• On a Raven's Wing: New Tales in Honor of Edgar Allan Poe -- It caught my eye from a display in a center aisle. The book's editor, Stuart Kaminsky, invited contemporary authors to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Poe's birth by writing new stories inspired by him or his work. I loved reading Poe when teaching American literature, and I like "companion" works--stories, poems, films, etc., inspired by an earlier story, poem, film, etc.--so I'm eager to start reading!
• Robinson Crusoe -- Our family has been enjoying watching NBC's Crusoe (remember?), but none of us has ever read Daniel Defoe's book that inspired the TV series. That's about to be rectified.
• Ballistics -- Billy Collins is one of my favorite poets, and this is his newest collection of poetry, so this was an obvious choice for me.

We looked unsuccessfully for a Scandinavian cookbook, too. Any suggestions, anybody?

*Our Super Bowl Sunday plans include snacking and, for supper, eating appetizer-y kinds of foods: stuffed potato skins, Buffalo chicken wings, vegetables in spinach dip, bruschetta, etc. We'll most likely eat all this while stationed in front of the flat-screen TV . . . watching a cooking show from Food Network or a home design show from HGTV, no doubt. We'll probably flip over to "the game" occasionally to see who's winning . . . or even who's playing.

P.S. See the poll in the sidebar to the right to register your vote.