Billy Collins' 'Advice to writers'

Billy Collins, a brilliant perceptual poet of our time who never ceases to bring relative relatable works of literature to the table of profoundly insightful texts, has once again outdone himself with the poem, my personal favourite, ‘Advice to writers’. The didactic free-verse poem counsels aspiring writers on the art of writing open-to-interpretation and unbiased books. Bias is an inclination that people often have to ignore impeccably legitimate perspectives and sometimes they may be right but it’s still morally wrong to judge a book by its cover. The poet instructs writers to “wash down the wall and scrub the floor”, this being symbolism for washing away all the negative perspectives they have on matters and scrub away societies' influence on how they behave and think before writing any work of literature  so as to write without biased judgement. The author should explore every point of view to see which one would work the best to his/her liking.

   I give praise to Billy Collins in his use of tactical language skills throughout this poem mostly symbolism being a dominant factor. “You will behold in the light of dawn” he says. In the current urban English the statement ‘I see the light’ means acquisition of knowledge henceforth Billy Collin’s phrase symbolises and describes  methods of getting over writers block. The poem also has an idiom, “Spotlessness is the niece of inspiration”. This phrase adds on to supporting the idea of abandoning biased opinions. 

  The poem is structured into five stanzas, each stanza being a sentence that insinuates that the author is talking directly to the reader as the poet is talking in 2nd person(You). This makes the reader feel included and important in the poem.

     

  I feel as if the poem can be interpreted, branched out even as Billy Collin subconsciously noting down the different categories of being bias. In reference to vlogger/musician, Hank Green, blind-spot bias can be related to the poem, it being defined as a cognitive bias where one thinks that other people are more biased than they. The person in question is then advised through metaphors to forget all these society and circumstance influenced views that he/she may have grown up with. Another form of bias as explained by said vlogger above is anchoring bias where as a person finds one reason of bias and then uses this reason to find even more negative things about a said topic. For an extended briefing of categories of bias refer to the link at the bottom of this text. This shows that Billy Collins poetry relates to younger generations than his, showing his well understated wit of understanding human relations, all the while managing all this brilliance in a bleak monotonous tone that disguises his self depreciating humour in manner I find very intriguing. 

   This poem was written post 9/11 and could suggest that writers should not create stereotypical characters of muslims and Arabians as it undermines the people of the specific culture. An example of a book that proves the point is Arab Detroit 9/11: Life in the Terror Decade describes and narrates how Detroit’s large and very diverse Muslim and mostly Christian Arab American community experienced discrimination, harassment, and government prosecutions of alleged “terror cells”. Billy Collin’s poem may be hinting towards the unfair misguided stereotypes and extreme bias tied to their identity. This biased judgement may be extended to how black people are attached to negative behaviours such as aggression and ignorance and African-American women being over sexualised. The poem ‘Advice to writers’ challenges these ways of acting in our society and strongly insinuates that they should be left behind.  

References:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLkdFCK0rg8 

Abraham, Nabeel, Sally Howell, & Andrew Shryock (eds.). Arab Detroit 9/11: Life in the Terror Decade. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2011.