BAR TIME by Billy Collins

BAR TIME by Billy Collins.

 

      
Billy Collins explores how people spend too much time in bars enjoying themselves leaving or trying to forget their troubled lives behind even if it’s only for 15 minutes. But then eventually time catches to them this is seen in the last stanza it says “when ordinary time slouches past in a topcoat rain running off the brim of his hat.” Billy Collins uses symbolism to show how one begins to wonder if they have some kind of choice other than running after time or taking life easily in a while thinking that they can outline their troubles.                                               

The poem is under the category of humor I personally think it’s funny and ironic because it’s mocking the society on how they set and use their time and also how to avoid their problems.  

The poem is structured into four stanzas, it has long sentences which make it fluid and it is almost as if he is having a conversation with himself because it’s in first person and he is making direct sentence.  The tone of the poem is monotonous because it doesn’t change and it is a free verse poem since it has no rhyme.

I personally think the “bar” is just a setting that Billy Collins used but his main message to the readers is that the poem can make one feel aware of those moments when you are able to step outside time. This can be verified through the quote “this makes us a rather advanced group doing our drinking in the unknown future”. It portrays how people are able to step outside time and observe themselves and other people rushing around doing things that we all probably think or thought are so dynamic and necessary. I think the poem also signifies self-expression through the idea of being hyper-aware of simple moments. I really love the poem because it conveys how simply capitalizing ordinary time turns into this person we can see instead of just getting an idea. For instance in the last stanza when it says, “no wonder such thoughtless pleasure derives from tending the small fire of a cigarette, from observing this glass of whiskey and ice, the cold rust I am sipping”. It is an imagery that made me imagine people drink and smoke in a bar and watching the rest of the world scrubbing their cars across the streets thinking they look “like they have never had a day of fun in their whole life.”   I can say that the poem is compact and clever and does make one really think about life in general.

                                                                                                                                                By REGINA CHIPANDA.