More Griping About Billy Collins
It's true: sometimes I'm bitter and vindictive. Sometimes I can't let stuff go. Because of this, I always seem to have one poet that I hate. My arch poetic enemy. And for about the last four years, that enemy has been Billy Collins. Not that it'll ever cause him any pain, oh dear god no. After all, he seems to be the head of every poetry organization or foundation, is the judge of every poetry prize, and was poet laureate. And yes, by the way, this is political to some extent. Any poet who would spend two years making up little poems for White House functions is both politically and artistically suspect in my eyes. Just look at the first sentence of the Wikipedia article for the guy that Bush appointed as head of the NEA:
That's right, like everyone else in our government it seems, even the head of the NEA has a corporate past.
Now that you know the basis of my beef with Collins, I mean, in addition to the fact that his poetry is lame, you might understand why I'm perturbed that he made it into The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Considering how well-connected Collins is, it did not surprise me, it just disappointed me. However, my disappointment was elevated to disgust when I read the head note to his work.
For those of you who have never experienced the joy of having to lug around a huge Norton anthology of literature for several semesters in a row, I'll explain. I think the most important Norton by far is the anthology of English literature. It's pretty much the standard book of English lit for college English departments around the country. The Norton Shakespeare is also widely used, as is the anthology of American lit. With a few exceptions, works are arranged chronologically based on the birth date of the author. In the case of the Shakespeare, based on the probable date of composition. Each author has a head note, usually one to two pages long, but sometimes longer for more important authors. This gives a biographical sketch of the author mixed with some general criticism, so the student will be better prepared for the works she's about to read. Sometimes, really important works will have their own head notes. So, for Milton, there will be a general head note, and then another one for Paradise Lost.
So, let's compare the first sentence of the head note for Billy Collins with another well-known poet's in the same volume of the anthology.
Elizabeth Bishop:
"The enormous power of reticence," the poet Octavio Paz said in a tribute, "-- that is the great lesson of Elizabeth Bishop." Bishop's reticence originates in a temperament indistinguishable from her style; her remarkable formal gifts allowed her to create orderly and lucid structures that hold strong feelings in place. (p. 2713)
Billy Collins:
The voice in a Billy Collins poem is so intimate and immediate that we feel we are in the same room with the poet. [Quotes text of a Collins poem to illustrate.] The colloquial voice in his poems charms us with its air of spontaneous expression, its modesty, its humor. (p. 3029)
Although the head note for Bishop is a little wordy, two things about it strike the reader: that the subject under discussion is very complex, and that the "greatness" of the subject is taken for granted. The point of these sentences is not to convince you that Elizabeth Bishop is great -- the writer assumes that you will figure that out for yourself if you haven't already -- but to start to explain why Bishop is great.
Compare this to the writing on Billy Collins. The greatest contrast is the complexity of the ideas being conveyed. The note on Bishop is trying to explain why Bishop's more formal and almost spare style has the power to create strong emotion. The head note for Collins, on the other hand, prepares us for the case of the warm fuzzies that we're supposed to get from a Collins poem. It's "intimate," "spontaneous," "modest," and "humorous." Oh, and let's not forget "charming." Unlike Bishop's head note, this one is trying to get us to like Collins. Collins' "greatness" is not taken for granted, and the writer has to wheedle us in to having a favorable disposition towards him. The Bishop note is legitimate criticism, whereas the Collins note is ass-waxing, to put it bluntly.
I understand what must be the anxiety of editors in adding contemporary poets to an anthology like this. There is no guaranteeing that all, or any, of the poets they select will be remembered 50 or 100 years from now. That anxiety spills over into the writing about these poets, since their inclusion will need to be defended to some extent. Nevertheless, the editors seem to be trying harder with Collins than any other poet. For instance, a few poets after Collins is Cathy Song, whose head note begins:
In many of Cathy Song's poems, a particular moment or event becomes a window through which we enter a field of vision. (p. 3084)
This isn't trying to get you to like Song, it's just telling you about her poetry. The writer doesn't feel a need to use praise-words like "charm" and "modesty" here. So what's my conclusion? Collins got in to the Norton on the strength of his connections, not his poetry, and the need of the editors to defend him shows that.
By the way, I was totally vindicated by reading Collins' Wikipedia page and finding this 2003 review in The Guardian:
Housman was popular because his form was familiar: ballad stanzas. Collins is popular because his form is also familiar: prose. Not entirely rhythmless prose; like Housman, Collins knows how to turn an emotional line-break and quicken a last line. But it is prose in that it rarely deviates from go-ahead grammar, and never attempts the compact rearrangement of language potential in a verse line.
[. . .]
"This is all I want to do", he says in "Night Letter to the Reader": "tell you these things". When these things include an emerging moon "looking like the top of Shakespeare's / famous forehead", it is hard not to be mildly charmed. [I, for one, am not mildly charmed at that sucky and awkward attempt at a simile.] The objection remains, however, that the current US poet laureate writes cosy prose for people who prefer novels. Snappy, popular poetry can also be technically and imaginatively exemplary verse: Blake, Betjeman, Frank O'Hara. Collins not only misses the rhythmic flair of such poets; he also sugars their searching honesty.
Thank you, Mr. Jeremy Noel Tod. I can sleep a little more easily at night.
