This first collection (on this side of the Atlantic) of the American poet Billy Collins comes replete with praise from many quarters - John Updike, E. Annie Proulx, Carol Ann Duffy. There is neither overstatement nor heady indulgence in any of it. The publication of this collection, with its idiosyncratic signature style, endorses the view of Collins as one of the outstanding - and rewarding - American poets.
Collins's writing is a combination of many qualities: rueful and funny; crisp and lyrical; wry and meditative, modest yet subversive. His seemingly passive constructions are deceptively casual, even matter-of-fact, but never less than engaging. A parishioner of the world, he is always willing to take on, as he says himself in one of his own poems, "something you don't hear much about in poetry". The pleasure of smoking, insomnia, night driving, hats, Canada, piano lessons, even Irish cows, a Bonsai plant and Osso Buco are among his subjects.
His freewheeling imagination exults in this immediate world but his particular gifts are how he uses it to resonant effect, his powers of depiction and ability to see what the rest of us miss and the startling juxtapositions around him:
And when he comes into full view over open fields he looks like a young man who has fallen in lovewith the dark earth,a pale bachelor, well-groomed and full of melancholy,his round mouth openas if he had just broken into song.(from "The Man in the Moon")
When he sees things in a way that is contrary to logic, it is always convincing. The images are subdued, appear weightless, but like the fist in the velvet glove, they leave an impact. While many of the poems appear to have the openness of ordinary speech, there is a resourceful and transfiguring lyric voice at work here. From the most unusual angles he connects with the everyday and the commonplace, distilling a wisdom and serenity from his sources along the way:
The full moon makes sense. When a cloud crosses itit becomes as eloquent as a bicycle leaning outside a drugstore or a dog who sleeps all afternoonin a corner of the couch.
Bare branches in winter are a form of writing.The unclothed body is autobiography.Every lake is a vowel, every island a noun.
(from "Winter Syntax")
Drawn from an eclectic succession of places, periods and palettes, it is almost consistently successful, sometimes exceptional ("Dancing Towards Bethlehem", "Shoveling Snow with Buddha", "Candle Hat", the title poem), often very funny ("Forgetfulness", "Nostalgia", "Consolation") and with few exceptions ("Putting Down the Cat", "To a Stranger Born in Some Distant Country Hundreds of Years From Now" and "Bar Time" are among the more limp pieces). While the language may, at times, seem a bit unpoetic or slack, it always takes the unexpected route to a moment that catches the reader unawares.
The weight of the world in these poems is carried by a playful humour (reminiscent of Elizabeth Bishop) and a vigour that recalls Robert Duncan. An obvious jazz aficionado, Collins is as good as it gets on the subject in poems like "The Many Faces of Jazz"and "Nightclub"; equally evocative are his considerations of subjects from visual art.
In one of the very best poems - "Taking Off Emily Dickinson's Clothes" - Collins takes a risk with a subject that might merely have offered itself as a quaint character sketch but, in his hands, we get a subversive deconstruction of an icon.
In his poem "Advice to Writers", Collins says "The more you clean, the more brilliant your writing will be." Here is a poet who listens to his own advice, and who also offers fresh perceptions and a reinvention of poetic ideas - a great discovery.
Gerard Smyth is a poet. His next collection of poetry is forthcoming from Dedalus. He is also a Managing Editor of The Irish Times
