Sailing Alone Around the Room: New and Selected Poems
by Billy Collins
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Book Summary Information
Author: Billy CollinsEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2002-09-17
ISBN: 0375755195
Number of pages: 192
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Book Reviews of Sailing Alone Around the Room: New and Selected Poems
Book Review: Chase von, And glad I am doing this review now vice when I first read this...
Summary: 5 Stars
I have to be honest in writing this review because that's my nature. I bought this book years ago while on active duty in the military and it was a busy time, a time made even busier because I was burning the mid night oil working on my own book. I heard about "America's Poet Laureate" Billy Collins and since that's in my vein so to speak, figured I had to check him out.
For those of you who gave this book less than a five, I encourage you to read it again when you have actual time to really read it.
I didn't, though I read the words front to back but I didn't really absorb what was there. I even contacted a friend and fellow poet and someone I look at as a brother and Mentor and said some of it's good, but if this is all it takes to be a "Poet Laureate" you and I are both going to be famous! In his wisdom because he's a bit older and I believe wiser he told me, "I think you're going to have to read it again brother."
I didn't...
I put it on the shelf and quite frankly didn't think about Billy Collins until I heard about another book he had written called, "The Trouble With Poetry."
I checked that one out at the library. And loved it!
Then a bell went off and I was like I of course have his other book. Friends, it was like reading a new book! Things that quite frankly went by my busy mind the first time made me feel like WOW... I get it now! An example of that is on every page to be blunt regarding my experience but here's one just to prove my point.
The Lesson
In the morning when I found History
snoring heavily on the couch,
I took down his overcoat from the rack
and placed it's weight over my shoulder blades
It would protect me on the cold walk
into the village for milk and the paper
and I figured he would not mind,
not after our long conversation the night before.
How unexpected his blustering anger
when I returned covered with icicles,
the way he rummaged through the huge pockets
making sure no major battle or English queen
had fallen out and become lost in the deep snow
By Billy Collins
From "Sailing Alone Around the Room"
A busy mind or unfocused mind would say what is this about? Next page.. Maybe the next poem will be better.
A mind that isn't cluttered see's exactly what this is about...
History is not only always written by the victors but it is also jealously guarding of any of it being lost that supports what HIS STORY is!!!
It's fine to sit there and discuss it while it's present to assure you of its lies, but let that same History be taken else where and perhaps changed, challenged or lost and you've got to reinforce the HIS STORY all over again. There's more there as well but moving on...
Another brief example of that is from Walking Across The Atlantic
I wait for the holiday crowd to clear the beach
before stepping onto the first wave
(Later it ends)
But for now I try to imagine what
this must look like to the fish below
the bottoms of my feet appearing, disappearing
Not quite as rushed, and an avid reader as well as a sponge for knowledge I get this as well. However only someone who feels as if they know things others don't know on a large scale would understand the metaphors here.
And that's not to insult anyone's intelligence but often those who know what the masses do not, don't want to be in the presence of those who couldn't "Get Them" anyway.
God knows how many fish are in the ocean but the semblance there tells me something as well with the last line of feet appearing, and disappearing.
To sum this up, great chess players think so many moves ahead that the person who is simply responding to the last move is in many ways, like a fish inquisitively looking at something it can't fully understand but is still seeing it, all the same.
(I was that proverbial fish, the first time around and I am not ashamed to admit it)...
When it comes to poetry, Billy Collins truly is a worthy Poet Laureate and if your rushed or not prepared to think truly deeply, your not going to enjoy his writings. If your not rushed and like your mind challenged and stimulated your going to love it!
I highly recommend this book as well as "The Trouble With Poetry" and I look forward to more works from this master of the written word!
With respects
Sincerely,
Chase Von
Your Chance to Hear The Last Panther Speak
Summary of Sailing Alone Around the Room: New and Selected Poems
Sailing Alone Around the Room, by America?s Poet Laureate, Billy Collins, contains both new poems and a generous gathering from his earlier collections The Apple That Astonished Paris, Questions About Angels, The Art of Drowning, and Picnic, Lightning. These poems show Collins at his best, performing the kinds of distinctive poetic maneuvers that have delighted and fascinated so many readers. They may begin in curiosity and end in grief; they may start with irony and end with lyric transformation; they may, and often do, begin with the everyday and end in the infinite. Possessed of a unique voice that is at once plain and melodic, Billy Collins has managed to enrich American poetry while greatly widening the circle of its audience.Poetry Books
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