A Billy Collins Poem

Jack Foley

A friend asked me to comment on this Billy Collins poem:

READING AN ANTHOLOGY OF CHINESE POEMS OF THE SUNG DYNASTY,  I PAUSE TO ADMIRE THE LENGTH AND CLARITY OF THEIR TITLES

It seems these poets have nothing
up their ample sleeves
they turn over so many cards so early,
telling us before the first line
whether it is wet or dry,
night or day, the season the man is standing in,
even how much he has had to drink.

Maybe it is autumn and he is looking at a sparrow.
Maybe it is snowing on a town with a beautiful name.

"Viewing Peonies at the Temple of Good Fortune
on a Cloudy Afternoon" is one of Sun Tung Po's.
"Dipping Water from the River and Simmering Tea"
is another one, or just
"On a Boat, Awake at Night."

And Lu Yu takes the simple rice cake with
"In a Boat on a Summer Evening
I Heard the Cry of a Waterbird.
It Was Very Sad and Seemed To Be Saying
My Woman Is Cruel--Moved, I Wrote This Poem."

There is no iron turnstile to push against here
as with headings like "Vortex on a String,"
"The Horn of Neurosis," or whatever.
No confusingly inscribed welcome mat to puzzle over.

Instead, "I Walk Out on a Summer Morning
to the Sound of Birds and a Waterfall"
is a beaded curtain brushing over my shoulders.

And "Ten Days of Spring Rain Have Kept Me Indoors"
is a servant who shows me into the room
where a poet with a thin beard
is sitting on a mat with a jug of wine
whispering something about clouds and cold wind,
about sickness and the loss of friends.

How easy he has made it for me to enter here,
to sit down in a corner,
cross my legs like his, and listen.

The poem is meant to be a graceful tribute from a poet writing in one tradition to poets
writing in another--and it is. It is also meant to be something of an imitation of the style of these poets: an attempt to do the same thing in English. The ambiguity of the first line ("it seems these poets have nothing") is resolved quickly and never asserted again. Does the poem penetrate very deeply into the other culture? No, it does not. Does it come anywhere near what Ezra Pound achieved in his Cathay poems--or Arthur Waley in his translations? No, though its style is nevertheless dependent on what Pound and Waley did. Is there something slightly racist--something Charlie Chan-ish about the poem? Yes, there is, and doesn't this description sound like the way "Beatniks" used to be described?

a poet with a thin beard
is sitting on a mat with a jug of wine
whispering something about clouds and cold wind,
about sickness and the loss of friends.

(Far out, man.) Does the poem slightly demean the very people it is supposed to be praising? Does it treat them as an exotic "other"? Yes, it does. We can read the poem easily, but it is also easy to forget it. Does it open up any questions, does it challenge us in any way? No, it does not: it is entirely self-satisfied. Does it encourage us to read the poets it is supposedly praising? No, it does not. Are the lines

Maybe it is autumn and he is looking at a sparrow.
Maybe it is snowing on a town with a beautiful name.

particularly dreadful? Yes, they are. Is the poem a cheap piece of Orientalism? Yes, it is.

Jack Foley