[.ca] Picnic, Lightning (ISBN 0822956705)

From Amazon.com:
In these playful, conversational poems, Billy Collins immerses us in the minutiae of a life--cow viewing, parsley chopping, "buzzing around on espresso"--and restores a sense of wonder. In a voice half confessional, half avuncular, he takes us by the hand and shares his deepest secrets. Whether shoveling snow with the Buddha, releasing Emily Dickinson from her corsets, spoofing Auden and Wordsworth, or putting words in the mouths of Victoria's Secret models ("So what if I am wearing nothing / but this stretch panne velvet bodysuit ... Do you have a problem with that?!"), Collins is a pure delight. In one of several poems in which jazz figures prominently, he amusingly considers well-known but ne'er-acknowledged facial expressions such as "the languorous droop," "pained concentration," and "existential bemusement." Similarly, in "Marginalia" he caps off a list of scribblings with a pointed request for all to step forward who "have managed to graduate from college / without ever having written 'Man vs. Nature'" in a margin. Though there is plenty to make us laugh, Collins is more than a mere comic genius. On the contrary, he balances the ribald with the poignant, the over-the-top with the serenely beautiful: And the soul is up on the roof in her nightdress, straddling the ridge, singing a song about the wildness of the sea until the first rip of pink appears in the sky. Then, they all will return to the sleeping body the way a flock of birds settles back into a tree... In the opening poem ("A Portrait of the Reader with a Bowl of Cereal"), Collins defies William Butler Yeats's advice to "never speak directly, / as to someone at the breakfast table." Instead, he promises to "lean forward, / elbows on the table, / with something to tell you." One hundred pages later, we thank him for a promise kept. --Martha Silano

Light-lit Vignettes:
Billy Collins fulfills Wordsworth's image of "spots of time" captured and later reflected upon. Though Collins's messages and meanings are subtler than Wordsworth's, Collins connects with feelings and moments common to many of us. His inspiration from daily life, from which he draws Keillor-esque observations, quenched my fears that as a writer, I must draw from exotic experiences uncommon to my readers. A peaceful read at Saturday breakfast.

A Study in Being:
"I like writing about where I am, where I happen to be sitting, The humidity or the clouds, The scene outside the window- A pink tree in bloom, A neighbor walking his small, nervous dog." Billy Collins seems to have moments of brilliance within poems discussing ordinary aspects of everyday living. Is this part of his charm? I think for someone to find beauty in the ordinary, you have to have a vivid imagination and transform the simple into the magnificent. Collins was reappointed to the post of U.S. Poet Laureate in the summer of 2002. He travels throughout the country for readings, lectures and is well loved by his audiences. While some reviewers don't feel his poetry has beauty, I think the beauty is when you connect with a specific poem. In this book, I had to read all the way to page 39 before anything really "struck" me as amazing. There is a cute poem about breakfast, a story of fishing and then on page 17 I found: "no matter what the size the aquarium of one's learning, another colored pebble can always be dropped in." I think what I like is the conversational style. Billy seems to mostly be talking to the reader or explaining a situation that he enjoyed. There is a casual elegance in his poems. He invites you to journey with him through the poems, although at times Collins throws in a highly imaginative sentence or an entire poem that throws you for an intellectual loop. Billy Collins vocabulary is stunning all on its own. The way he blends the words into images and colors is more than impressive. In "Journal" you can imagine yourself walking in the dark, downstairs in a robe and trying to compose an entry in a journal. Any writer knows, you can hardly go to sleep when thoughts are pouring out of your mind and begging to be dripped through a pen onto a new page. My favorite poem in this book was: "I Go Back to the House for a Book" because anyone who loves reading can relate to being stranded without a book. Here one part of himself goes back to the house while another part races off into the world. He plays with a similar idea in "The Night House," where his body, heart, mind and soul go to different areas of the house. "Moon" is rather interesting. Here, Collins speaks of our inner child and how even if we don't have a child, we can care for our inner child. I have to laugh when I read "Paradelle for Susan," because even the poem sounds nervous. Collins repeats most of the lines. Apparently a Paradelle is not that easy to write and it might be a fun challenge to try to write your own poem in this "fixed form." Reading the poems in "Picnic, Lightning" might make you feel slightly poetic yourself. Pittsburgh Press has issued special limited edition hardcovers of three of Billy Collins' books: Questions about Angels, The Art of Drowning, and Picnic, Lightning. I'm thinking I need to find an autographed copy of "Questions about Angels." If you are just starting to read poems by Billy Collins, I'd start with "Questions about Angels."

good:
I don't know what else to say about Billy Collins that I haven't said elsewhere. He's a remarkable poet, who does his thing and does it well. Picnic, Lightning is a pretty solid collection of poems, though if you have Collins's selected poems there's no need to pick this one up. Those that weren't included in the selected aren't very good, with the exception of "I Go Back to the House For a Book," which I think is a marvelous poem and should have been included in the selected poems.

Sumptuous!:
This volume of poetry is one of Billy Collins' most enjoyable works. The poems are filled with wit and charm in equal measure. They abound in simple epiphanies about everyday events showing Collins' keen intellect. If someone can bring a simple event like browsing a Victoria's Secret catalogue to life, that someone is definitely special. Read this book and you will be carried away into Collins' world. You wouldn't want to return to the real one after that.

I'm still not sure what all the fuss is about:
A lot of people have been telling me to read Billy Collins. It's not that I dislike his poetry. It's funny, observant, and overwhelmingly accessible. Even if you rarely read poetry, you will find nothing here to intimidate you. Accessibility is fine as long as it opens the door to deeper things. I read this entire book in two short sittings and found the bulk of it banal. Only one poem struck me as worth reading a second time. I could carp about prosy phrasing, but the main complaint I have is that I fail to sympathize with Collins' cushy life. Almost all of the poems in here are about thoughts that occured to him while he was sitting around listening to jazz or reading books. To say these are trivial ruminations might condemn the sources of their inspiration-- yet the way he states them, at very least, failed to electrify me. I like what Collins has been doing as the Poet Laureate of the United States to promote poetry. But sail around this book if you desire more from your reading. There are plenty of poets out there today who are digging deeper.