POEMS OF BILLY COLLINS

1/8/2014

I have always been a fan of Billy Collins and his latest collection Aimless Love is simply outstanding. And this particular poem deeply resonated within me....

ENVOY

Go little book
out of this house
and into the world

Carriage made of paper
rolling towards town
bearing a single passenger
beyond the reach of this jittery pen
and far from the desk
and the nosy gooseneck lamp

It is time to decamp
put on a jacket and venture outside
time to be regarded by other eyes
bound to be held in foreign hands

So of you go, infants of the brain
with a wave and some bits of fatherly advice:

Stay out as late as you like
don’t bother to call or write,
and talk to as many strangers as you can.

Billy Collins
From his book
AIMLESS LOVE

2 Comments

Naheed Azmathulla

1/9/2014 10:52:05 pm

Robert Frost said and I quote, Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words. Reading this quote backwards, brings me to the emotion, the poet, in this case Collins, felt before and while he wrote the above poem.
For him, releasing his book for the world to read was the final and the highest point of his writing. It was very similar to sending his child out into the world for the first time.
The imagery he creates in the second stanza is brilliant in its utter simplicity. The parallel drawn between a writer sending his work out into the world to be read and interpreted by others, and a parent sending his or her child into the world is warm and lovable and ever so delightfully relateable to me.
The joy a writer feels when his or her work is read and appreciated by others, often surpasses the indisputable joy one feels when he or she completes a work. When others read or perceive one’s work, the work gets a new respectability which completely satiates and rewards the writer.
This again, is so similar to how a parent feels when others appreciate his or her child for his or her qualities or upbringing .Reading this poem made me make an instant connection between how I felt when I released my first book of poems into the world and the emotions I felt as I bid the most heartfelt farewell to my daughter when she was parting with me to pursue further studies abroad and live life and experience the world on her own.

Dr Raguram

1/10/2014 10:52:22 am

Such a perceptive perceptive Naheed,,,,Thanks...

POEMS OF BILLY COLLINS

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Dr Raguram

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