Customer Reviews

Art Of Drowning (Pitt Poetry Series)

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I first came across "lines lost among trees" in the Best of American Poetry 97. Next was The Art of Drowning. I feel Collins' presence in each of his poems; he writes himself into every one of them. He relates to his readers in a casual, informal way, not at all stuffy like the great predecessors of English poetry. He makes poems out of even the most hum-drum things of our daily lives, and crafts them in so delicate a way that they become fresh and alive. Collins himself is a very lively and affable person; I've had the opportunity to meet him. Picnic, Lightning however, was a bit of a disappointment; it couldn't top the ingenuity of The Art of Drowning. As for his earlier works...if only I could get my hands on them! They are all out-of-print. Billy Collins is not like other poets. He puts on no airs; he's the real thing.

Billy Collins's original voice is delightfully accessible, often blending comedy and solemnity in one poem, and always with something new to say. The playful tone of these poems can be misleading; whether he is writing about eating a good plate of Osso Bucco or his favorite museum rooms, there is always a pathos lingering in the silence after the last line. Most relieving is the absence of pretentiousness or haughty language. This is simply, as Robert Bly writes in his introduction to the best American poems of 1999, Collins's skillful ability to "bring the soul up close to the thing" in every poem. Books such as "The Art of Drowning" threaten to change the face and purpose of poetry in the 21st century. Let's hope there is plenty more to come from Billy Collins.

If you are asking yourself "how can drowning be an art?" you have sensed some of the wry humor that he includes in his poetry. I've only read a handful of poems, but I can already sense the way he puts a plain style to an often comic end. He hasn't been "laugh out loud" funny yet, but he still offers more humor than most contemporary poets. This isn't by chance, either. He knows it:

I am swaying now in the hour after dinner,/ a citizen tilted back on his chair, / a creature with a full stomach-- / something you don't hear much about in poetry, / the sanctuary of hunger and deprivation. / You know: the driving rain, the boots by the door, / small birds searching for berries in winter. ("Osso Buco")

I think that is a wonderful description of much contemporary poetry which many people feel must stem from pain rather than pleasure.

Collins is also willing to be... well... quirky. Here is his description of the types of paintings he likes, from a poem called "Metropolis:"

I like the calm rustic ones: a surface of lake, / the low bough of an oak like a long arm, / a blue smudge of distant hills, / anything with cows, especially if they are standing / in a stream, their large, vacuous faces / staring into the warm nineteenth-century afternoon. / And if one has lowered her head to drink / and the painter has indicated with flecks of white / the water pouring down from the animal's mouth, / then the day, I feel, has achieved a modest crest. //

. . . . . . . . .

You can have that bronze sculpture by the elevators: / "Revolution Holding the Head of Error / and Standing Over the Cadaver of Monarchy." / My place is here, leaning forward, wandering / through the microscopic eyelash details of / "Still Life with Herring, Wine and Cheese," / "Still Life with Tobacco, Grapes and a Pocket Watch," / "Still Life with Porcelain Vase, Silver Tray, and Glasses,"

The line that begins "anything with cows" is as close as I've come to laughing out loud. I don't know why, but something about the honest incongruity I find funny. And I love the parodic title of the sculpture (I assume it's a parody) as a counterpoint to the simplicity of the still life pictures. I think it is clear that his poetry is more in the vein of the still life than the epic or allegorical, and I find his voice refreshing.

The best poem in the collection is "The Invention of the Saxophone" which brings together all of the concerns he develops in this wonderful collection.

John Updike says of Billy Collins' poems, "...they describe all the worlds that are and were and some others besides." The poems in this book picked me up and carried me, covered with gooseflesh, through these worlds. The subject matter is the everyday, the invisible behind the visible, the thin shadow of the world obscuring reality. To say that I liked this book is too weak a statement -- say that this book is now a part of me.

Billy Collins' latest, 'Picnic, Lightning' is an inspiring string of pearls. Each poem, a lustrous contrast of imagination within reality. As in 'Aristotle',

a streak of light in the sky, a hat on a peg, and outside the cabin, falling leaves.

Collins wrecklessly selects objects that evoke both sullen and inspiring emotions. His talent resides not only in his choice of images but also in his ability to gather them into a lucid believable form, as in 'After the Storm':

Soft yellow-gray light of early morning, butter and wool, the two bedroom windows still beaded and streaked with rain.

Butter and wool, one can just feel the morning come, the rain gently falling, the mood clearly laid out. This is the excellence that presides over this collection.

Buy it, sit with it, let it permeate your senses. You will be a changed person for having read it.

Reading Collins has given me a greater appreciation for the potential of free verse. He has affected my own writing in what I am currently interpreting as a positive way...
I've forgotten how to rhyme / But that's O.K. / Perhaps was tyme!
These poems evoke recognition in the reader. For the most part, we can participate in them. They deal with simple things we can identify with. Like saxophones, dreams, clouds, writing as a craft, the Blues, a really good cigarette... and meat.
And speaking of meat, I have christened Osso Buco as my favorite Collins poem to date. I think of it as a little hymn to domestic contentment, which is "something you don't hear much about in poetry." But there is a wonderful undertone running through this poem... that the great things in history did not necessarily take place in the atmosphere of satiated bliss here described, and at first glance, seemingly lauded.
This is what I love so much about his stuff. The intelligent playfulness, the game involving what is said, and what is meant. What we see on the page is like the one-sixth of the iceberg above water... there is so much beneath, in and around the words.
There is always something more to think about when you come to the last line of a Collins poem.

There is nothing trite about this collection. I've taken about a month to read through these fifty poems, because each is like a meal in itself. The book is not a party-platter of bite-size hors d'oeuvres. Nothing is measly. And Osso Buco is a feast.
You owe it to yourself to eat... I mean read, The Art Of Drowning.
T. y. L. i. I.

There is poetry that you perfunctorily get by with in school. Then there is poetry you pick up from second hand stores, thinking "Heck, just 15 cents, couldn't hurt" only to find that it was the price that didn't hurt not necessarily the poetry. And then there is poetry that is, well, not poetry at all but smart, beautiful, delectable ideas expressed more vertically than prose -- a real man's real thoughts about real things that almost any one of us can relate to and savour.

It is this last genre of poetry that I would get myself to review, and Billy Collins is among the best of such contemporary poets-- sharp, witty, satirical, misleadingly simple but frequently flirting with meanings that deeply touch even the most ordinary among us, and without fail, an absolute thrill to read.

What sheer pleasure then to see a master in top form. In this little compendium his words are spare and casual as usual, holding us riveted by the force of what is articulated but not necessarily spoken. His brush runs a wide gamut in this book, I believe Amazon has a "Look Inside" feature that'll give you an idea of the poems to expect (even the titles are interesting! "Sunday Morning with the Sensational Nightangles", "The Biography of a Cloud", "On Turning Ten", "While Eating A Pear") ..but regardless of what subject has his attention, words take on a life of their own under his prying eyes without ever losing a practical, talkative tone --

"You are so beautiful and I am a fool/to be in love with you
is a theme that keeps coming up
in songs and poems.
There seems to be no room for variation.
I have never heard anyone sing
I am so beautiful/and you are a fool to be in love with me,
even though this notion has surely/crossed the minds of women and men alike
You are so beautiful, too bad you are a fool
is another one you don't hear.
Or, you are a fool to consider me beautiful.
That one you will never hear, guaranteed..."

Priceless. For the fascinating thoughts, even more than their expression, this is a sweet little collection to willingly drown in again and again.

"In a while, one of us will go up to bed
and the other one will follow.
Then we will slip below the surface of the night
into miles of water, drifting down and down
to the dark, soundless bottom
until the weight of dreams pulls us lower still,
below the shale and layered rock"
~Osso Buco

Firstly, I want to say that I love the Pittsburgh Poetry Series. Each book is about 100 pages and you can read one book right before going to bed. Poetry seems to calm my mind and encourages more vivid dreams.

"The Art of Drowning" is an interesting collection. It is not as "cartoon" focused as "Questions about Angels." Although, there is some silliness to be had in "Nightclub" where we are amused by songs no one would sing. It was funnier when my husband read it to me. I'm not sure why. He and I were reading in bed and I asked him to read me some poems. He liked "The Biography of a Cloud," especially the lines: "but early one morning over Arizona it held the distinction of being the only one in the sky." He loves going to Arizona, so he could easily imagine the lonely cloud drifting across an open sky.

You hardly imagine that reading poetry in bed would be anything less than romantic, yet with many of Billy Collins' poems, this is exactly what happens. Apparently I'm not the only one who was highly amused by "Nightclub." My husband was just calmly reading and I was lost in laughter as if there were some private joke only I was acknowledging.

Many of the poems seem quite intimate, like cozy conversations with the reader. There is an inner vision and motion. At times Billy Collins peers into frankness as it looks back starkly and at other times his matter-of-fact observations show irony. Then, suddenly we are drowned in nostalgia, awakened by dread or simply wondering at the sheer imagination it takes to write the last few lines of "Tuesday."

You have to love the "book recommendations" in "Canada," or the story of trees reciting poems in "Fiftieth Birthday Eve." Collins turns poetry into magic. These are not just words dancing before your eyes, they are living creatures jumping off the page into our imagination. His choice of words is like the choice of colors for a painting, yet the painting is occurring in minds. The better your imagination, the better the poem. You must submit the canvas for the artwork. You can remain closed, only seeing the words, or let the words into your mind and allow them to paint vivid images, recollection, connect with past memories or propel you into thinking about the future.

The title of this book refers to a poem called: The Art of Drowning and it deals with the concept of your life flashing before your eyes. Here, Billy Collins takes a rather irreverent look at what happens when you die and why your life might not necessarily "flash" but might take other forms.

Billy Collins' poems amaze me, not only because he can adjust his focus in a variety of amusing and out-of-the-box ways. He amazes due to his ability to make each poem an emotion or a moment in time, representative of his present condition. There are moments of longing, the dreams of travel and other places he'd rather be. There is also a comfort in the present and common life or solitude when observing nature.

Many poems (in general) make me feel that I am on the outside looking in. Billy Collins' poems make me feel that I am on the inside, looking out as Billy Collins observes his world.

He does at times seem to be an observer as words break on the page. There are undercurrents of emotions surging inside him and occasionally they break on the page as sarcasm, irony or a sheer appreciation for being. In "Conversion" he takes us into the past while in "Death Beds" he takes us into the future. Here we think about where we will be when we die. Not something I think about daily, but an interesting concept.

"I would hope for a window,
the usual frame of reference,
a clear sky, or think high clouds,
an abundance of sun, a cool pillow."

"Medium" is stunning because it explains how Collins would love to write on more surfaces than paper and I'm sure he realized that each time he writes a poem, he is writing on our hearts or across our minds and many of his poems are unforgettable and seep into your soul. Some of the poems will even drown you in laughter.

~The Rebecca Review

I adore Billy Collins and this is one of my favourite collections. His words are honest and simple and his cadence is refreshing. I can't think of a poet to compare Collins to, he writes a unique style that is impossible not to love. If you poetry, buy this book. If you hate poetry, buy this book and it will change your mind. Collins' writing isn't difficult to understand and it is a simplistic treat in such a complex world.

Collins has a way of translating life into beauty, the ordinary into something so spectacular, so perfect, that you want to hold it in your hands and rub it over and over again until it's so worn you can't read it. But it never reaches that - every poem is a stream of words chosen so perfectly, words that hang on eachother so lightly that when they fall they hit very, very hard. It lit fires in everyone who I've read it to; every last line leaves you hanging in perfect silence while you try to digest what just hit you. or at least it's like that to me.