by Billy Collins
Random House 2008
Reviewed by John Deming
Ahh..the Name is Billy, Baby
Ahh…Billy. Billy, Billy, Billy. Billy. Billy Collins is used to being condescended to, and that makes sense. He’s popular. Poetry’s Mitch Albom. Poetry’s Dan Brown. Poetry’s American Idol. You can find his new book, Ballistics, in the “New Fiction” (yes, fiction) section at the Union Square Barnes and Noble—so naturally, Billy Collins is suspect.
I, for example, suspect he would’ve been less successful if he’d made a choice early on to go by “William” instead of “Billy.” But none of that has anything to do with the quality of his poems, about which it can be said that the best shine like angels, and the worst revolt like a dandelion sandwich.
Most Collins poems begin with a getting-to-know-you. Our poet loves to talk about poetry, loves tercets, and spends the bulk of his time sitting home, sipping tea, gazing out the window and reminding himself how simple life is. His most fully-imagined poems crystallize at unexpected moments; “January in Paris” riffs on Paul Valery’s famous proclamation that “poems are never completed—they are only abandoned.” Our poet finds himself in Valery’s Paris, where he seduces and then “finishes” a Valery poem, likened to a young girl:
Never mind how I got her out of the café,
past the concierge and up the flight of stairs—
remember that Paris is the capital of public kissing.And never mind the holding and the pressing.
It is enough to know that I moved my pen
in such a way as to bring her to completion,a simple, final stanza, which ended,
as this poem will, with the image
of a gorgeous orphan lying on a rumpled bed,
her large eyes closed,
a painting of cows in a valley over her head,and off to the side, me in a window seat,
blowing smoke from a cigarette at dawn.
This is a charming, somehow lonely stretch, a G-rated self-important fantasy with a duality that hits the mark. Lesser poems, though, there are. “This Little Piggy Went to Market” picks up where the title leaves of: “is the usual thing to say when you begin / pulling on the toes of a small child…” At the end, he’s too cute, too freakin’ merry:
I don’t want to be the one to ruin the children’s party
by asking unnecessary questions about Puss in Boots
or, again, the implications of a pig eating beef.
By the way, I am completely down with going
“Wee wee wee” all the way home,
having done that many times and knowing exactly how it feels.
I wish the sweetness here were at least Garrison Keillor granddad sweetness, but it seems closer to a single Dad trying to dazzle a single Mom during Story Time at the local library.
Connecting with others, though, is important in this book. However “famous” a poet our speaker is, he is distanced from his readers. “August in Paris” plays whimsically on the reader/writer relationship; however often a person talks to the poet about his book, the transmission of poem to head takes place always elsewhere and in silence, in the mysterious space where poems live—Collins’s best poems, and the poems he loves so much and can’t stop referencing (you should know there is a poem called “The Idea of Natural History at Key West”). Collins lets us access this place with alarming graciousness, and the openness of his voice probably helps account for his popularity; as he points out in “Hippos on Holiday,” “Only a mean-spirited reviewer/would ask on holiday from what?” Collins falls so naturally into his comfort zone that he makes it look easy; none of his copycats have come close.
The only other William Collins I’ve heard of also went by a moniker—Bootsy Collins, of P-Funk and Rubber Band fame. If it’s only the blissfully cartoonish name you’re chasing, buy the 1977 funk classic Ahh…the Name is Bootsy Baby, as it is a vastly superior creative effort. But if you’re out for American poetry’s feel-good hit of the year, give Ballistics a shot.
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