I Chop Some Parsley While Listening To Art Blakey's Version of "Three Blind Mice" by Billy Collins

Billy Collins former U.S. Poet Laureate

And I start wondering how they come to be blind.
If it was congenital, they would be brothers and sister,
and I think of the poor mother
brooding over her sightless young triplets.


Or was it a common accident, all three caught
in a searing explosion, a firework perhaps?

If not,
if each came to his or her blindness separately,


how did thy ever manage to find one another?
Would it not be difficult for a blind mouse
to locate even one fellow mouse with vision
let alone two other blind ones?


And how, in their tiny darkness,
could they possibly have run after a farmer's wife
or anyone else's wife for that matter?
Not to mention why.


Just so she could cut off their tails
with a carving knife, is the cynic's answer,
but the thought of them without eyes
and now without tails to trail through the moist grass


or slip around the corner of a baseboard
has the cynic who always lounges within me
up off his couch and at the window
trying to hide the rising softness that he feels.


By now I am on to dicing an onion
which might account for the wet stinging
in my own eyes, though Freddie Hubbard's
mournful trumpet on "Blue Moon,"


which happens to be the next cut,
cannot be said to be making matters any better.




[Personal Note: I absolutely ADORE this poet. I had the pleasure of seeing Billy read this poem in person up at Kent State. It was then I fell in love with his poetry. It was then I fell in love with poetry period.]

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You, Reader -- By Billy Collins

Billy Collins

I wonder how you are going to feel

when you find out

that I wrote this instead of you.

that it was I who got up early

to sit in the kitchen

and mention with a pen

the rain-soaked windows,

the ivy wallpaper,

and the goldfish circling in its bowl

Go ahead and turn aside,

bite your lip and tear out the page,

but, listen -- it was just a matter of time

before one of us happened

to notice the unlit candles

and the clock humming on the wall.

Plus, nothing happened that morning--

a song on the radio,

a car whistling along the road outside--

and I was only thinking

about the shakers of salt and pepper

that were standing side by side on a place mat.

I wondered if they had become friends

after all these years

or if they were still strangers to one another

like you and I

who manage to be known and unknown

to each other at the same time --

me at this table with a bowl of pears,

you leaning in a doorway somewhere

near some blue hydrangeas, reading this.

--What I love about Billy Collins' poems are that they always seem to be a dialog with us, his readers. I love the way his mind works. His poems always make me want to go get a cup of tea -- English TeaTime, then, sit a my computer and stare out the window to watch a poem form on a cloud passing by--

Technorati Tags: billy collins, poems, poetry

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Introduction to Poetry by Billy Collins

Billy Collins --One time U.S. Poet Laureate

I can't begin to tell you how much I love Billy Collins. His poetry is fresh and uplifting. His writing inspires my writing. Hopefully one day, I'll become a poet close to his caliber.

Now on to my favorite poem by Billy Collins --

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.

Approachable Poetry or Not

I have learned that there are many different definitions of “good” poetry. Being a novice writer I strive to perfect my craft by reading and learning from professionals. With this thought in mind I have done a small bit of research and found that the question what is good poetry which, by the way is now being termed approachable poetry, is a hot topic among the ranks of writers. This topic is being debated all the way down the literary echelon, from the learned and professional poets to those of us who write poetry for personal use and self-gratification.

I am not sure why I was lead to write this column or article, however you readers want to categorize this, but I am. My favorite poet Billy Collins was scheduled to speak at a literary conference in Salt Lake City this weekend and seems to have caused an uproar (maybe that’s why I just love that man) among his literary peers. He has now been dubbed “the poster child of approachable poetry” in literary circles (Salt Lake City Tribune Sun. Sept. 11, 2005). Mr. Collins brought on the ire of some critics who believe that good poetry does not necessarily have to appeal to the masses and should not have to be explained. This argument, in literary circles, is about whether poets should write for the audiences or write to please themselves (Salt Lake City Tribune). This article went further to explain that many of the American people are no longer reading as much as they use to. Said article provided statistics gathered by Association of American Publishers to supplement this statement. My question is this: how will a Writer, Poet, Novelist etc… be a writer if they do not read the classics... novels, poetry, plays of established writers? My contention is and always has been, we should read poetry, write poetry, read poetry…

This same argument mentioned in the above paragraph has been broached on many poetry forums of different types in one way or another. I find it interesting that those of the academic and professional writing world are asking the same questions many of us novice-want-to-bes are asking, what is good or approachable poetry. How is it defined? If the professionals are debating the issue then, who is to say what is good and approachable writing. Is this subjectivity rearing its obscure head?

Deborah White

Salt Lake City Tribune Article

http://sltrib.com/arts/ci_2999035