The Lanyard
The other day I was ricocheting slowly
off the blue walls of this room,
moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.
No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one into the past more suddenly-
a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp
by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid long thin plastic strips
into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.
I had never seen anyone use a lanyard
or wear one, if that's what you did with them,
but that did not keep me from crossing
strand over strand again and again
until I had made a boxy
red and white lanyard for my mother.
She gave me life and milk from her breasts,
and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sick room,
lifted spoons of medicine to my lips,
laid cold face-cloths on my forehead,
and then led me out into the airy light
and taught me to walk and swim,
and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.
Here are thousands of meals, she said,
and here is clothing and a good education.
And here is your lanyard, I replied,
which I made with a little help from a counselor.
Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
strong legs, bones and teeth,
and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,
and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.
And here, I wish to say to her now,
is a smaller gift-not the worn truth
that you can never repay your mother,
but the rueful admission that when she took
the two-tone lanyard from my hand,
I was as sure as a boy could be
that this useless, worthless thing I wove
out of boredom would be enough to make us even.
***********************************************
Lanyard: Nautical. A short rope or gasket used for fastening something or securing rigging.
A cord worn around the neck for carrying something, such as a knife or whistle.
A cord with a hook at one end used to fire a cannon.
Poem by Billy Collins
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Zlatko Waterman
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perezoso
Ugh.She gave me life and milk from her breasts,
and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sick room,
lifted spoons of medicine to my lips,
laid cold face-cloths on my forehead,
and then led me out into the airy light
Collins is sort of the Grandma Moses of American poesy; and this poem, like a few others I have read, confirms my suspicion he's a sentimental and colloquial hack. The language is conversational, neither poetic nor innovative. The idea and sentiments may be admirable, but it's not so far from countless other Reader Digest's scribblings....
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Zlatko Waterman
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One must expand, expand, P.
Yes, Collins is for the masses-- a kind of Rockwellian imagery at times.
But you know me--Rockwell was also a genius technician.
Billy Collins is at his best when he handles zen motifs or things that simply drift in.
He may not stand up against Georg Trakl or Paul Celan, but for mothers and right here and now, he's sentimental and that's how I like him-- tethered to a lanyard.
I hope your Sarge-ings and goings are faring well. And good luck tutoring the unwashed.
Your sentimental associate,
Z
Yes, Collins is for the masses-- a kind of Rockwellian imagery at times.
But you know me--Rockwell was also a genius technician.
Billy Collins is at his best when he handles zen motifs or things that simply drift in.
He may not stand up against Georg Trakl or Paul Celan, but for mothers and right here and now, he's sentimental and that's how I like him-- tethered to a lanyard.
I hope your Sarge-ings and goings are faring well. And good luck tutoring the unwashed.
Your sentimental associate,
Z
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perezoso
Yes, expand, expand and realize the beauty of determinism and "nature red in tooth and claw."
Really, man, I appreciate yokel poetic sentimentality sometimes, as in Frost or Wordsworth, at least for 15-20 minutes.. Collins is neither--its much more personal and subjective--like a diary entry. No Rockwell virtuoso, more like a sunday painter of barns and dinners. You think your bardic hero Ted Roethke would approve? I doubt it.
Really, man, I appreciate yokel poetic sentimentality sometimes, as in Frost or Wordsworth, at least for 15-20 minutes.. Collins is neither--its much more personal and subjective--like a diary entry. No Rockwell virtuoso, more like a sunday painter of barns and dinners. You think your bardic hero Ted Roethke would approve? I doubt it.
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Zlatko Waterman
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Roethke was somewhat caustic in his disapproval of diner painters.
Collins is an entertainer for the folks.
A good man, but ambitious beyond health.
You and I (P. and Z.) remain working on being friends.
Salute to ( you and ) the desert, Springer. Crepax, Moebius, Manera, Caniff and the comm. coll. eejuts.
Mon hypocrite lecteur, mon frere . . .
--Z ( you know who)
Collins is an entertainer for the folks.
A good man, but ambitious beyond health.
You and I (P. and Z.) remain working on being friends.
Salute to ( you and ) the desert, Springer. Crepax, Moebius, Manera, Caniff and the comm. coll. eejuts.
Mon hypocrite lecteur, mon frere . . .
--Z ( you know who)
Collins has helped ruin American poetry, and has nothing to do with sentiment or entertainment value: its detachment, living inside the image's and the conepts of life without really feeling.
I would argue that him and Pinsky are the reason that "the masses" don't really read a whole lot of new poetry.
I would argue that him and Pinsky are the reason that "the masses" don't really read a whole lot of new poetry.
Not a Collins fan but ....
First, the caveat that I am not necessarily a Billy Collins fan. I posted this poem one morning after reading it and feeling somewhat sentimental about my mother. The poem spoke to me & my feelings so I put it up.
That aside, let me ask you, beat_fan - is it your premise that BEFORE Robert Pinksy and Billy Collins became so prominent on the national poetry scene (the "poetry establishment", perhaps you'd call it) "the masses" WERE reading a lot of new poetry?
That aside, let me ask you, beat_fan - is it your premise that BEFORE Robert Pinksy and Billy Collins became so prominent on the national poetry scene (the "poetry establishment", perhaps you'd call it) "the masses" WERE reading a lot of new poetry?
"... accept balance on the turbulent promenade."
I think we can drop that the whole "masses" thing. I was quoting zlatko anyway.
And I am very sorry about your mother. I suppose the poetry of Collins holds more of a sentimental value than I had originally perceived. I had anautisitic friend who died of a seizure when he was sixteen. SInce then I have become very fond of a song by christian pop-singer Michael W. Smith that my friend used to sing called "riends Are Friends Forever."
So, pre-Collins and Pinsky. Bare with me, I'm seventeen year old who's never known an America where new poetry is widely read. I have observed a marked difference, however, in the level of feeling and emotion, and connection with the world around them, of poets like Allen Ginsberg and Sylvia Plath, who achieved large audiences earlier in the century. (Sylvia, of course, several years after her suicide, but her work has been important to a large group of people decades, still). Mr. Collins writes in a very simple way in both subject and diction, in my opinion. And his individdual works are often driven clever little ideas. I like the more prosaic poets when they have a conceptual spark. Pinsky's problem s that he's inconsistent, and oftne driven by this clever streak. 'Shirts,' I would argue, is a masterpiece. But I haven'tead anything else as good.
And I am very sorry about your mother. I suppose the poetry of Collins holds more of a sentimental value than I had originally perceived. I had anautisitic friend who died of a seizure when he was sixteen. SInce then I have become very fond of a song by christian pop-singer Michael W. Smith that my friend used to sing called "riends Are Friends Forever."
So, pre-Collins and Pinsky. Bare with me, I'm seventeen year old who's never known an America where new poetry is widely read. I have observed a marked difference, however, in the level of feeling and emotion, and connection with the world around them, of poets like Allen Ginsberg and Sylvia Plath, who achieved large audiences earlier in the century. (Sylvia, of course, several years after her suicide, but her work has been important to a large group of people decades, still). Mr. Collins writes in a very simple way in both subject and diction, in my opinion. And his individdual works are often driven clever little ideas. I like the more prosaic poets when they have a conceptual spark. Pinsky's problem s that he's inconsistent, and oftne driven by this clever streak. 'Shirts,' I would argue, is a masterpiece. But I haven'tead anything else as good.
Hey B_F, your writing is clear and well-constructed, I tip my pen to you. Thanks for clarifying your statement.
I haven't read enough Pinksy or Collins to make any sweeping declarations about either of them (such as "Pinsky's problem is that he's inconsistent..."). I have all I can do to get a grip on my own poesy, my own determined steps down the poetry road.
As for Ginsberg, I was thinking of him this morning and listening to him read on the way to my job this morning. "Kral Majales", "Who Be Kind To", "Mind Breaths".
I thought, "Ginsberg is like a 19th century explorer/naturalist. Not all about clever verse, word twists, or philosophical declarations, but about exploring his own mindscape and laying down his observations accurately and honestly. Like he's paved a poetry path of his own meandering life, and we can all stroll it from time to time, looking out through his cranium eyes, taking history lessons, musing the machinations & catastrophes of the 20th century."
I haven't read enough Pinksy or Collins to make any sweeping declarations about either of them (such as "Pinsky's problem is that he's inconsistent..."). I have all I can do to get a grip on my own poesy, my own determined steps down the poetry road.
As for Ginsberg, I was thinking of him this morning and listening to him read on the way to my job this morning. "Kral Majales", "Who Be Kind To", "Mind Breaths".
I thought, "Ginsberg is like a 19th century explorer/naturalist. Not all about clever verse, word twists, or philosophical declarations, but about exploring his own mindscape and laying down his observations accurately and honestly. Like he's paved a poetry path of his own meandering life, and we can all stroll it from time to time, looking out through his cranium eyes, taking history lessons, musing the machinations & catastrophes of the 20th century."
"... accept balance on the turbulent promenade."
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Zlatko Waterman
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- Location: Los Angeles, CA USA
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When I used the phrase "the masses" I was trying to deal with perezoso's rather cruel and inattentive dismissal of Billy Collins's poetry.
Collins tries to reach a large audience. He is the opposite of my friend the poet Robin Magowan, who, in his many books, reaches very few, and those are among the deep initiates of poetry.
http://www.sc.edu/uscpress/Sp98/3269.html
For a poet to be truly "accessible", he or she must deliberately avoid lines and images like these:
Froggy bushes dear, jump all over your spine
Froggy Bushes in the Appenine
Froggy Bushes got a crater in his eyes
jump all over the bushes dear, jump all over his spine
Froggy Bushes all over your spine
Froggy Froggy Froggy keeps them down
Froggy Bushes all over your spine
Froggy Froggy Froggy keeping them that way
all over your bushes all over your spine
( Robin Magowan, "Looking For Binoculars"}
or Magowan's friend, the eminent American poet John Ashbery:
http://www.poets.org/poets/poets.cfm?prmID=242
Oh, Nothing
The tent stitch is repeated in the blue and red
Letter on the blocks. Love is spelled L-O-V-E
And is echoed farther down by fear. These two are sisters
But the youngest and most beautiful sister
Is called Forward Animation. It all makes sense
If you look at her through the clock. Now,
Such towns and benign legends as were distilled
To produce this moment of silence are dissolved
In the stream of history. Of her it may be said
That what she says, she knows, and it will always come undone
Around her, as you are thinking, and so the choice
Is still and always yours, and yet
You may move on, untouched. The glassy,
Chill surface of the cascade reflected her,
Her opinions and future, de-defining you. To be amused this way
Is to be immortal, as water gushes down the sides of the globe.
( John Asbery, "Shadow Train")
These eminent poets, acclaimed by many, reviewed by many, and ensconced in the Academy of American Poets, are not writing for a large audience. They are writing for the cognoscenti of poetry.
Ginsberg's "Howl" was considered avant-garde in the fifties, and now seems a bit academic, as Ginsberg enjoys inclusion in most academic collections of twentieth century poems.
Collins tries to reach as many readers as he can, not to be hermetic or obscure, and to share universal sensations in a comprehensible form.
Philip Larkin, one of the twentieth century's greatest poets, said he felt that a poem should be thoroughly understood on the first reading.
Surely that is not going to happen with Magowan and Ashbery's poems.
Perhaps one can comprehend Collins at a single reading. I cannot most of the time, and wish to re-read him, to wring out all that is there.
I re-read all of Philip Larkin year after year, marveling at his absolute mastery of simple diction and commonplace themes and narratives.
The angle of approach to poetry is everything. What do I mean by that? If you have been nourished on sound poetry or French surrealism, Magowan and Ashbery may strike you as perfectly comprehensible.
Others prefer Collins.
Few will pay for poetry. That's why, in the consumer society, most people will not buy books by Magowan or Ashbery. Or by Billy Collins either, for that matter.
How many ( out of 290 million or so) Americans ever knew that Billy Collins was Poet Laureate of the United States? Or that the US even had a Poet Laureate? Or what a Poet Laureate might be in the first place?
Zlatko
Collins tries to reach a large audience. He is the opposite of my friend the poet Robin Magowan, who, in his many books, reaches very few, and those are among the deep initiates of poetry.
http://www.sc.edu/uscpress/Sp98/3269.html
For a poet to be truly "accessible", he or she must deliberately avoid lines and images like these:
Froggy bushes dear, jump all over your spine
Froggy Bushes in the Appenine
Froggy Bushes got a crater in his eyes
jump all over the bushes dear, jump all over his spine
Froggy Bushes all over your spine
Froggy Froggy Froggy keeps them down
Froggy Bushes all over your spine
Froggy Froggy Froggy keeping them that way
all over your bushes all over your spine
( Robin Magowan, "Looking For Binoculars"}
or Magowan's friend, the eminent American poet John Ashbery:
http://www.poets.org/poets/poets.cfm?prmID=242
Oh, Nothing
The tent stitch is repeated in the blue and red
Letter on the blocks. Love is spelled L-O-V-E
And is echoed farther down by fear. These two are sisters
But the youngest and most beautiful sister
Is called Forward Animation. It all makes sense
If you look at her through the clock. Now,
Such towns and benign legends as were distilled
To produce this moment of silence are dissolved
In the stream of history. Of her it may be said
That what she says, she knows, and it will always come undone
Around her, as you are thinking, and so the choice
Is still and always yours, and yet
You may move on, untouched. The glassy,
Chill surface of the cascade reflected her,
Her opinions and future, de-defining you. To be amused this way
Is to be immortal, as water gushes down the sides of the globe.
( John Asbery, "Shadow Train")
These eminent poets, acclaimed by many, reviewed by many, and ensconced in the Academy of American Poets, are not writing for a large audience. They are writing for the cognoscenti of poetry.
Ginsberg's "Howl" was considered avant-garde in the fifties, and now seems a bit academic, as Ginsberg enjoys inclusion in most academic collections of twentieth century poems.
Collins tries to reach as many readers as he can, not to be hermetic or obscure, and to share universal sensations in a comprehensible form.
Philip Larkin, one of the twentieth century's greatest poets, said he felt that a poem should be thoroughly understood on the first reading.
Surely that is not going to happen with Magowan and Ashbery's poems.
Perhaps one can comprehend Collins at a single reading. I cannot most of the time, and wish to re-read him, to wring out all that is there.
I re-read all of Philip Larkin year after year, marveling at his absolute mastery of simple diction and commonplace themes and narratives.
The angle of approach to poetry is everything. What do I mean by that? If you have been nourished on sound poetry or French surrealism, Magowan and Ashbery may strike you as perfectly comprehensible.
Others prefer Collins.
Few will pay for poetry. That's why, in the consumer society, most people will not buy books by Magowan or Ashbery. Or by Billy Collins either, for that matter.
How many ( out of 290 million or so) Americans ever knew that Billy Collins was Poet Laureate of the United States? Or that the US even had a Poet Laureate? Or what a Poet Laureate might be in the first place?
Zlatko
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Dave The Dov
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- Contact:
Finding a poet's work is like digging for buried treasure. When you discover it you're amazed at what you will find. I've heard of Ashbery,Larkin. But the those other two Collins and Magowan are new to me. I will keep an eye out for them. ZW have you heard of May Sarton or John Ciardi???? I have them on tape each of them reading one of their poems. I'm not sure how to describe their work but I like how they read them. It really brings their work to life!!!! 
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