On Billy Collins -- Ann-Marie Nazzaro
Maybe it was the collision of my particular stage of life at the time (I’d made 60) and the title – “Forgetfulness” – and wit in this particular poem by Billy Collins that cemented my bond with him.
How many authors of novels you have read can you name? How much of the plots do you recall?
What Collins does in the opening of this poem is tell us in exactly what order things pertaining to books we have read will float out of our memory. Forgetting starts with the author’s name, the title, the plot and proceeds through to “the entire novel,” which we won’t even recall having read, or recall having heard of!*
After reading “Forgetfulness,” then sharing it with friends, it was hard for me to dispel its vivid image of memories retiring to “a little fishing village where there are no phones.” Or of the quadratic equation packing its bags.
It’s hard to find another poet with the gumption to take off Emily Dickinson’s clothes as she stands at the window of her bedroom, her writing room in Amherst (“Taking Off Emily Dickinson’s Clothes,” Billy Collins, in Poetry, February 1998).** Even if you’ve read Emily’s “Wild Nights—Wild Nights!” (249) and seen the spate of documentaries and docudramas of her life, Collins’s treatment of this poet-icon hits you over the head vis-à-vis the single prim photo and myths of reclusiveness that we have of this extraordinary, 19th century, timeless woman.
There are many Billy Collins’s poems and subjects we’d recommend. Read how he treats the death of his father, place and distorted time in “Where I Live.” And for dog-lovers, Billy Collins delivers two poems, each from the dog’s perspective: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOvbl3ZPPV4
Beyond all of these mentioned, we recommend that you leap into Billy Collins’s world; he shares it in each of his poems. Go, unlock it.
* See the full poem at: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/37695/forgetfulness
**See the full poem at: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?contentId=40151
