"Ballistics: Poems" by Billy Collins

Ballistics: Poems by Billy Collins

Britt's review

Rating: 5 of 5 stars
Billy Collins does it again. His most recent collection of poems hits it out of the ballpark. Collins is witty and sardonic, he takes the mundane and transforms it into extraordinary. After reading his poems, I often find myself wanting to examine the inner recesses of his brain so that I can see the world at the angle he does.

In my humble opinion, Billy Collins is one of the great poets of our time. I confirmed this a few years back when Daniel and I had the absolute pleasure of hearing him read. Collins is unassumingly hilarious, though he also has his moments of profundity.

A couple snippets:
‘This Little Piggy Went to Market’
is the usual thing to say when you begin
pulling on the toes of a small child,
and I have never had a problem with that.
I could easily picture the piggy with the basket
and his trotters kicking up the dust on an imaginary
road

What always stopped me in my tracks was
the middle toe—this little piggy ate roast beef.
I mean I enjoy a roast beef sandwich
with lettuce and tomato and a dollop of horseradish,
but I cannot see a pig ordering that in a delicatessen.

I am probably being too literal-minded here—

I am even wondering why it’s called “horseradish.”

I should just go along with the beautiful nonsense

of the nursery, float downstream on its waters.

After all, Little Jack Horner speaks to me deeply.

I don’t want to be the one to ruin the children’s party

by asking unnecessary questions about Puss in Boots

or, again, the implications of a pig eating beef.

By the way, I am completely down with going

“Wee, wee, wee” all the way home,

having done that many times and knowing exactly how

     it feels.

 


‘Baby Listening’
According to the guest information directory,
baby listening is a service offered by this seaside hotel.

Baby listening—not a baby who happens to be listening,
as I thought when I first checked in.

Leave the receiver off the hook,
the directory advises,
and your infant can be monitored by the staff,

though the staff, the entry continues,
cannot be held responsible for the well-being
of the baby in question.

Fair enough, someone to listen to the baby.

But the phrase did suggest a baby who is listening,
lying there in the room next to mine
listening to my pen scratching against the page,

or a more advanced baby who has crawled
down the hallway of the hotel
and is pressing its tiny, curious ear against my door.

Lucky for some of us,
poetry is a place where both are true at once,
where meaning only one thing at a time spells
    malfunction.

Poetry wants to have the baby who is listening at my
    door
as well as the baby who is being listened to,
quietly breathing by the nearby telephone.

And it also wants the baby
who is making sounds of distress
into the curved receiver lying in the crib

while the girl at reception has just stepped out
to have a smoke with her boyfriend
in the dark by the great sway and wash of the North
    Sea.

Poetry wants that baby, too,
even a little more than it wants the others.

Collins is wonderful. I daresay even people who don’t do cartwheels over poetry will like him.
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