Hello
As part of learning about Billy Collin's poetry, our teacher encourages us to find creative ways of illustrating and analyzing it. So for this post I decided to take one of his poems 'Nightclub' and write a monologue based on what is written.
Enjoy!!1
Have you heard of such lyrics? From J. Cole to the good ole' 80s, I mean this "is a theme that keeps coming up in songs and poems". Like every single love song has this and "there seems to be no room for variation"! It get's annoying after some time - no scratch that; it has ALWAYS BEING annoying!
Why can't people be original? "I have never heard anyone sing...."
Am pretty sure “this notion has surely crossed the minds of
women and men alike” but why is no-one singing it!
Why can’t I go singing I AM beautiful? (Because I sure am!)
And why do I have to be the fool?
Why can’t you be the fool even though “you are so beautiful”? Or “another one you don’t hear” is “you are a
fool to consider me beautiful”, though I’m pretty sure “that one you will never
hear, guaranteed”. It’s an unfair world of poetry and love out there. One is
expected to write out these entire ode’s and sonnets and lyrics in praise of
someone else, but no one wants to call themselves beautiful (cough cough) and
admit HE IS the fool. Except Kendrick Lamar in his song ‘I Love myself’ – he knows
what Collins and I are on about.
The other afternoon “for no particular reason”, I was “listening
to Johnny Hartman”. You know the American Jazz singer who specialized in
ballads? No? Doesn’t ring a bell?
Well, that’s good because despite having a soulful yet “dark
voice”, he is just another of those musicians who base their entire music on
the “concepts of love, beauty, and foolishness” thinking “no one else” will.
His music is beautiful – I’ve got to admit! It “feels like smoke curling up
from a cigarette someone left burning on a baby grand piano” (in the words of
Billy Collins, not mine). But the fact that he is all about calling me the fool
again like in his song You Are Too
Beautiful, just doesn’t make it click with me with me. I don’t want to join
all those “beautiful fools” who have “gathered around little tables to listen”.
Some of them “with their eyes closed” and “leaning into the music as if it were
holding them up” look pretty foolish if you ask me.
Right now I sound pretty cynical and not even the “loose ice
in a glass” will help me slip into a “rhythmic dream”. It’s way past midnight
and with all this “foolish beauty” I have “no desire to go home especially now
when everyone in the room is watching the large man with the tenor sax”. All we
need is Stevie Wonder and Louis Armstrong to accompany the jolly man. He’s
quite captivating…oh wait a second what is he doing? He just moved “forward to
the edge of the stage” and handed “the instrument down to me and nods that I should
play”. Me? And because I am the beautiful fool “I put the mouthpiece to my lips
and blow into it with all my living breath”. Maybe this is the chance to sing my
kind of song.
So for what it’s
worth, here is my “long bebop solo” ‘Nightclub Fool’s’ – make sure it reaches
the Billboards Top 100!
We are all
so foolish
So dam
foolish
We have
become beautiful without even knowing it.
