It was the third time I had come to hear him read at the Tucson Festival of Books. As always, Billy Collins was charming and funny as he shared his poems and reflections on the art of poetry. For good reason he’s been called the People’s Poet. I suspect many in the packed auditorium were poets like me, inspired by his accessible, light-hearted poems that didn’t need to be decoded. And he taught us that it’s OK to use humor. We laughed and applauded this living hero of poetry. Little did I suspect that we would be dissed.
When he put on his hat as a former Distinguished Professor of the City University of New York, he revealed an imperious side of himself I had never suspected. 83% of poems published today are not worth reading, he pontificated. Or maybe 82%, he added, as if to soften the blow with a tired attempt at levity. And there are just too many poems, he went on to say, and too many MFA programs pumping out new poets and poems. Then he rattled off some of his favorite big-name poets, many from the New York School, of course.
I thought about all the excellent regional, local, and so-called minor poets I’ve read, whose work never made it to the top, or Billy’s exalted 17%. I thought about all the beautiful as yet unpublished poems I’ve been privileged to read in workshops and critique groups. And I wondered what he might think of the 60,000 books freely available in aisle after aisle of the University of Arizona Poetry Center Library, said to be one of the finest and largest print/digital collections of contemporary poetry in America. Would he think there were too many?
I doubt if Founder Ruth Walgreen Stephan would have agreed with Billy’s 83%. Her vision was to create a place and a collection where people could freely choose “to encounter poetry without intermediaries,” and not be told by some snobby critic or professor what to read or not to read.
This is not to say that all poems are created equal. We each have different tastes in poetry, but there are some poems that truly stand out from the rest. To paraphrase Emily Dickinson, if you read a poem and it makes you feel physically as if the top of your head were taken off, you know, now that is a poem. A poem that can sustain you.
But then there are the others. These are the poems considered at least good enough to be published in a collection alongside the gems. Some are quite good, even though they may not take your head off and you may never read them again. And some you will stop reading after the first line or stanza. And some, truth be told, are obvious fillers. They are the poems you pass over on the way to the good stuff. While I would totally disagree with Billy’s arrogant and dismissive 83% (which almost made me stand up and shout at him, I am the 83%!), it is true that with all the good and great poems in the world, some poems just aren’t worth our time. But as Ruth would remind us, it is a personal choice between you and the poet, and no one else.
While I’ve been hard on old Billy here, I should point out that I have always been a big fan, and frequently dip into his books for inspiration (I currently have thirteen different collections of his, all signed). He is arguably the most popular living poet in the U.S. today, and has produced a substantial body of work that has touched the lives of readers around the world. Though not everyone is a fan of his easy-going, free verse style, I think even his critics will agree that most of his poems are well-crafted and worth reading. I suspect that people will still be reading some of his more famous poems long after he’s gone. Some of my own favorites include “Aristotle,” “Forgetfulness,” and “Cosmology,” in which he envisions “the earth/with its entire population of people and things/resting on the head of Keith Richards.” And how could I forget his frequently anthologized “Introduction to Poetry,” with its suggestion to “drop a mouse into a poem/and watch him probe his way out,” while all his students want to do is beat with a hose “ to find out what it really means.”
One thing I’ve noticed is that Billy rarely if ever writes political poetry or gets dark or depressed in his poems, usually managing to inject levity into even the most serious themes. An exception is “Building with Its Face Blown Off,” which I’ve always loved for its bare-boned emotion in the face of a scene increasingly all too common in these war-torn times.
How suddenly the private
is revealed in a bombed-out city,
how the blue and white striped wallpaper
of a second-story bedroom is now
exposed to the lightly falling snow
as if the room had answered the explosion
But there are times when Billy has really let me down. Take his poem “Looking for a Friend in a Crowd of Arriving Passengers: A Sonnet,” which begins with the first line “Not John Whalen” and then repeats it for twelve more lines until his last line “John Whalen.” Worth reading? I think not. Only someone as famous as Billy Collins could get away with that. And yes, Billy, we all know that these days the only remaining rule for a sonnet is that it has fourteen lines.
When the reading was over, I grabbed my copy of his latest book and got in line for him to sign it. “Thanks for coming today,” I told him, then added as an afterthought, “and thank you for inspiring so many of us poets to write and contribute to the glut of poems you describe.” He quietly signed my book and gave me a nervous smile.
Read more about Billy Collins here https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/billy-collins
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Well said, Gene!
Thanks, Kate!
Appreciative, Gene.
Oh Gene! As they say and I believe, Beauty is in the pen of the poet. (Wonder who said that?). The sheer joy of reading or listening to a “poet” read his or her work–words they’ve labored over, is always inspiring, some more than others of course. I do agree with Billy to an extent. There’s a glut of poetry about now and that does cheapen the product. Besides, some “poems” have been “beaten with a hose” and if the writer is so intent on telling a story, perhaps he should do just that: write a story and not call it poetry. You think? I’ve been a judge at poetry contests and it’s difficult to wade through the flood of writing to find one or two gems. Poetry, like any art form, depends on what the beholder (reader or listener) responds to. Robert Frost (whom I met when he opened the U of A Poetry Center in 1960) said, “POET ISN’T JUST A TITLE ONE WEARS ON A TEE SHIRT, that honor must be hard-earned and conferred by the knowledgeable”. I agree with that but in the meantime, if we don’t read through the glut of writing, we may miss a lot of gems. Thanks for your good essay. If we don’t challenge the “big names” they will continue to rely on their past successes (and their names) and fail to grow. -Respectfully, Lollie Butler
Oh Gene! Yes, some famous writers begin to lean on their past successes and fail to grow or accept others. But let’s not toss the baby out with the bath water; Billy is right about there being a glut of “poetry” now. I’ve been a judge at poetry contests and the heaps of stories that writers calls “poetry” is alarming. If they insist on “beating a poem” with a hose”, perhaps they’d be better off writing just that: a story and not calling it poetry. In his capacity as teacher and poet, I’m certain he tires of wading through piles of writing searching for one of two gems worthy of print. Yes, some magazines will publish your mother’s grocery list and call it poetry, but we who write know the good, discerning editors from the rest. I know Billy and he works terribly hard at his art–which is what poetry is of course, ART. And as the saying goes: Beauty (ART) is in the eye of the beholder Thanks for your good essay. We have an obligation to challenge writers and artists, less they sink into cynicism and bias. -Respectfully, Lollie Butler