The History Teacher.

Shannon Hale , an accomplished author of six novels says “Mama used to say, you have to know someone a thousand days before you can glimpse her soul.” People will never fully understand the situation someone is going through if they themselves have never experienced such emotions. Billy Collins is no stranger to this statement as expressed in his thought-provoking ruefully resonant poem ‘The History Teacher.’

The free versed poem is told in third person narrative as an observer who tries to narrate the ongoings of the History and the reasons behind them. The poem tugs on the compassion that the said character  has “trying to protect his students’ innocence” from “The War of the Roses” by shielding them from the truth. “While he gathered up his notes and walked home past flower beds and white picket fences, wondering if they believe that soldiers in the Boer War told long, rambling stories designed to make the enemy nod off,” said Billy Collins trying to insinuate that people who have not undergone such trauma are easy to forget the sacrifices that were made for them in order to live the lives they have now. Billy Collins may be referring to the world shocking event that happened in America, the 9/11, an act of terrorism that caused many deaths and made many Americans lose their family members. Over 3,000 people were killed during the attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C. The poem itself might be an expression on how Billy Collins thinks parents are handling the misfortune by downplaying it to their children to prevent from worrying and give an illusion of  safety to their innocent children.

On Turning Ten

 On Turning Ten by Billy Collins

Growing up and childhood experiences is a motif repeatedly mentioned in a lot of Billy Collin's poetry.  Whether its reminiscing on the glories or the growth, what I as reader interpret is that childhood is a key influence in the poet's life hence the constant repetition.

My particular favorite regarding childhood is the poem 'On Turning Ten' which a humorous insight on joys of childhood and the woes of growing up. Turning ten is usually quite a big step in childhood because its when you hit the first double digits number and it might also be considered a right of passage in some cultures. Therefore, with the title beginning with 'On Turning Ten' which insinuates the poet wants to further explain this issue, Collin's tackles not only a very relatable age but unfortunately one that not many people choose to ponder on. I believe this is what makes this poem more unique because everyone will write something on becoming a teenager or becoming an adult but many often forget other special times such as when you ten.

Moving on, in the poem of 5 stanzas, the first stanza tabulated with 7 lines is perhaps the most interesting stanza. Firstly in this stanza, the topic of discussion is subtly introduced with a conversational yet slightly opinionated tone. The poet doesn't start with mentioning that he will be talking about turning ten, but rather he dives in into his emotions regarding ten. It is through the use of the figurative phrase "coming down with something" that the negative implication of turning this new chapter in age is introduced in the poem. Already one can tell that the narrator is not looking forward to it. Adding on, Collins uses a set of metaphors to further emphasize on his emotions. With references to illnesses such as "measles...mumps...chicken pox" which are common during early childhood, I think the poet tries to imply that like these illnesses, turning ten is unavoidable.

As Walt Disney once stated, "the real trouble with the world" is that "too many people grow up" and with growing comes forgetting what it was like to be a child. Therefore, in the second the stanza of this poem, Collins takes us down the memory lane where we remember the "perfect simplicity of being one" and the "beautiful complexity introduced by two". By using contradictory words such as simplicity and complexity to describe two different ages, the poet highlights the fact just growing up to ten was an adventure. It's a journey where "at four I was an Arabian wizard...at seven...a soldier...at nine a prince"! Throughout the stanza, the excitement is illustrated through the imagination of the child. The fact that the poet keeps describing what the child was up until the last sentence shows of the relenting spirit of the child to believe in just about anything.

Yet, despite this, as the poem comes to a close, the adverse effect of growing up and saying "goodbye to my imaginary friends" is witnessed through the solemn mood of the receding stanzas. Instead of the boundless activity incriminated with being young, the boredom and the "beginning of sadness" for the child is now depicted. In fact, even the initial strong hate towards turning ten exemplified the first stanza is now reduced to a sense of defeat yet also acceptance.

It is at this point that I as a reader, I am inclined to reflect on my life and think just how growing up has changed my perspective on life. Before ten, I was a surgeon fixing up countless dolls that the evil terminator (my brother) had ruthlessly destroyed. After ten, I was too cool for Barbie and it was time for TV and other 'grown-up' stuff. Yet as I grow up, one thing I cannot deny is that childhood has distinctively influenced my life.

 

"It seems only yesterday I used to believe

there was nothing under my skin but light.

If you cut me I would shine.

but now when I fall upon the sidewalks of life,

I skin my knees. I bleed."

'Taking Off Emily Dickinson's Clothes'

WHO IS EMILY DICKINSON?

Have you ever wondered who Emily Dickinson was?

Or what Billy Collins relationship with her poetry is all about?

Here is a link that briefly describes Dickinson's life and death- https://www.youtube.com/ emily dickinson

Taking Off Emily Dickinson's Clothes

First, her tippet made of tulle,

easily lifted off her shoulders and laid

on the back of a wooden chair.

And her bonnet,

the bow undone with a light forward pull.

Then the long white dress, a more

 complicated matter with mother-of-pearl

buttons down the back,

so tiny and numerous that it takes forever

before my hands can part the fabric,

like a swimmer's dividing water,

and slip inside.

You will want to know 

that she was standing

by an open window in an upstairs bedroom,

motionless, a little wide-eyed,

looking out at the orchard below,

the white dress puddled at her feet 

on the wide-board, hardwood floor.

The complexity of women's undergarments

in nineteenth century America

is not to be waved off,

and I proceed like a polar explorer

through clips, clasps, and moorings,

catches, straps, and whalebone stays, 

sailing toward the iceberg of her nakedness.

Later, I wrote in a notebook

it was like riding a swan into the night

but, of course, I cannot tell you everything-

the way she closed her eyes to the orchard,

how her hair tumbled free of its pins,

how there were sudden dashes

whenever we spoke.

What i can tell you is

it was terribly quiet in Amherst

that Sabbath afternoon,

nothing but a carriage passing the house,

a fly buzzing in a windowpane.

So I could plainly hear her inhale

when I undid the very top

hook-and-eye fastener of her corset.

and I could hear her sigh when finally it was unloosened,

the way some readers sigh when they realize

that Hope has feathers

that reason is a plank,

that life is a loaded gun

that looks right at you with a yellow eye.

This poem in particular is one of my favourites because Collins literally takes off Emily Dickinson's clothes. Despite the sexual connotations associated with this poem, it is something people have been trying to do metaphorically since her death. There is very little information about Emily Dickinson so like Collins we must use her poetry to determine who she was. Below is a link to an interview of Billy Collins on Fresh Air Radio. In this interview he explains his fascination with Dickinson's poetry and his opinion on her history. 

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128272101

BUDAPEST

BUDAPEST

by Billy Collins

My pen moves along the page

like the snout of a strange animal

shaped like a human arm

and dressed in the sleeve of a loose green sweater

I watch it sniffing the paper ceaselessly

intent as any forager that has nothing on its mind

but the grubs and insects

that will allow it to live another day

It wants only to be here tomorrow

dressed, perhaps, in the sleeve of a plaid shirt

nose pressed against the page

writing a few more dutyful lines

while I gaze out the window

and imagine Budapest

or some other city

where I have never been

Nightclub ramblings

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.

 

 

 



                                                               THE FIRST DREAM BY BILLY COLLINS

The Wind is ghosting around the house tonight
and as I lean against the door of sleep
I begin to think about the first person to dream,
how quiet he must have seemed the next morning

as the others stood around the fire
draped in the skins of animals
talking to each other only in vowels,
for this was long before the invention of consonants.

He might have gone off by himself to sit
on a rock and look into the mist of a lake
as he tried to tell himself what had happened,
how he had gone somewhere without going,

how he had put his arms around the neck
of a beast that the others could touch
only after they had killed it with stones,
how he felt its breath on his bare neck.

Then again, the first dream could have come
to a woman, though she would behave,
I suppose, much the same way,
moving off by herself to be alone near water,

except that the curve of her young shoulders
and the tilt of her downcast head
would make her appear to be terribly alone,
and if you were there to notice this,

you might have gone down as the first person
to ever fall in love with the sadness of another.

After reading the title, where do you think we are going?

1.    1.  It’s     a trip into the dream. 

 What sort of trip do you think this will be? Does sound fun?   

2.       No it sounds scary because “the wind is ghosting around the house tonight” and the night is filled with uncertainty.

After reading the first stanza, where do we seem to be going?

3.       Not sure but I think we seem to be going into the dream as “I begin to think of the first person

To dream”.

What sight do we see?

4.       Imagery of  fire , rocks and a lake

Where will we go next?

5.       We will go to the lake to reflect about life.

Do we need special clothes? What kind? Are they comfortable?

6.       Not really when we feel cold we will just “stand around the fire and drape ourselves in the skins of animals”

Who do we meet along the way or who goes with us?

7.       We meet a beast and how one of us “had put his arms around the neck” but the rest of us “could touch only after they had killed it with stones”

What time have we travel led to? How do we feel here?

8.       We travel to the Stone Age “long before the invention of consonants” we feel savage following basic instincts.

What is the climate like? Does the weather change during our journey or does it stay the same throughout?

9.       We do not care we are savage beasts who do whatever it takes to survive.

Where do we arrive next? What is the next place like? Is it fun?

10.   Next we arrive into the hands of our lover. “Then again, the first dream could have come to a woman”

Whom do we meet?

11.   We meet desire in lust in form of a woman.

What do people seem to be doing?

12.   The woman seems to be sitting in misery shown by “the tilt of her downcast head” that “make her appear to be terribly alone.”

Where have we arrived at the end? What kind of place is this? How does it compare to the place where we going?

13.   We have arrived at the point of realization of what its truly like to love someone completely and holy and be swayed by their emotions  and “you might have gone down as the first person to ever fall in love with the sadness of another.”

ARISTOTLE by Billy Collins.

This is the beginning.

Almost anything can happen.

This is where you find

the creation of light, a fish wriggling onto land,

the first word of Paradise Lost on an empty page.

Think of an egg, the letter A,

a woman ironing on a bare stage

as the heavy curtain rises.

This is the very beginning.

The first-person narrator introduces himself,

tells us about his lineage.

The mezzo-soprano stands in the wings.

Here the climbers are studying a map

or pulling on their long woolen socks.

This is early on, years before the Ark, dawn.

The profile of an animal is being smeared

on the wall of a cave,

and you have not yet learned to crawl.

This is the opening, the gambit,

a pawn moving forward an inch.

This is your first night with her,

your first night without her.

This is the first part

where the wheels begin to turn,

where the elevator begins its ascent,

before the doors lurch apart.

This is the middle.

Things have had time to get complicated,

messy, really. Nothing is simple anymore.

Cities have sprouted up along the rivers

teeming with people at cross-purposes—

a million schemes, a million wild looks.

Disappointment unshoulders his knapsack

here and pitches his ragged tent.

This is the sticky part where the plot congeals,

where the action suddenly reverses

or swerves off in an outrageous direction.

Here the narrator devotes a long paragraph

to why Miriam does not want Edward's child.

Someone hides a letter under a pillow.

Here the aria rises to a pitch,

a song of betrayal, salted with revenge.

And the climbing party is stuck on a ledge

halfway up the mountain.

This is the bridge, the painful modulation.

This is the thick of things.

So much is crowded into the middle—

the guitars of Spain, piles of ripe avocados,

Russian uniforms, noisy parties,

lakeside kisses, arguments heard through a wall—

too much to name, too much to think about.

And this is the end,

the car running out of road,

the river losing its name in an ocean,

the long nose of the photographed horse

touching the white electronic line.

This is the colophon, the last elephant in the parade,

the empty wheelchair,

and pigeons floating down in the evening.

Here the stage is littered with bodies,

the narrator leads the characters to their cells,

and the climbers are in their graves.

It is me hitting the period

and you closing the book.

It is Sylvia Plath in the kitchen

and St. Clement with an anchor around his neck.

This is the final bit

thinning away to nothing.

This is the end, according to Aristotle,

what we have all been waiting for,

what everything comes down to,

the destination we cannot help imagining,

a streak of light in the sky,

a hat on a peg, and outside the cabin, falling leaves.

A Billy Collins Lesson: Reading like a tourist.
1 After reading the title, where do you think we are going?

     The title of the poem is Aristotle. Aristotle is a well renowned philosopher so I'm guessing we are going on a journey of life reflecting all the decisions we made and the ones we will wisely choose in the future. It seems more serious and reflective of ones decisions, bad decisions and that's not fun.

2. After reading the first stanza, where do we seem to be going?

   We have just been born and we are going to discover the wonders of life, what it is to be alive, we are going to going to be something extraordinary... a human being.

We are going deep into the histories of past times, "This is early on, years before the ark, dawn."

3. What sights do we see?

   We see curtains symbolising the beginning of the day. We see alot as "the mezzo-soprano stands in the wings" symbolising the creation of music as an art form that brings harmony into life.

Here we see the beginning of every feeling, situation and practice that ever came to be.

4. Where will we go next?
 
   Next we go into adolescence separated from adulthood by a thin line of perceptions and ignorance set by society that choses to disregard the youthful young innovators of our century.

5.  Do we need special clothes?, What kind? Are they comfortable?

   Social media, culture and religion influence what we wear.

Most of the  times social media  promotes clothes that are exposing and degrading especially for women.

6. Whom do we meet along the way or who goes with us?

   We then know pain, we meet friends who turn into enemies and disappointment that stretches out as far as the Atlantic ocean. We befriend revenge and his heartless mother betrayal.

7. Are there unfamiliar words we need to translate during thus trip?

  Aria- any expressive melody made by one voice with or without orchestral accompaniment usually in operas.

8. Do we travel in time? What time have we travelled  to?

  We have travelled through the beginning, the middle and the end of time. We feel as if everything we have done has amounted to nothing and everything. We were born to die. Nothing lasts forever, death is inevitable no matter what you do.

9. Does the weather change?

The weather changes throughout the journey; physically as we travel to different countries “the guitars of Spain,” “Russian uniforms” and metaphorically as the cold feeling we get when we are betrayed or shut out by someone or the warm feeling when we connect with a soul we feel we have known a lifetime ago.

10. Where have arrived next?

  

      “This is the end,” Whether it’s fun or not depends on you and how you take it. 

11. Whom do we meet here?

     Here we meet the ‘dark of ages past’. All our regrets and fears come true in due time.

12. What do the people seem to be doing?

   People seem to be forgetting but yet they remember their youth. What it was like to be in love and be able to run at full speed.