I was thinking when I did this post at the end of last year that I'd read a Billy Collins piece inspired by Chinese poetry, but I couldn't place it then. The thought only just resurfaced in my mind, and this time I wrested the formerly elusive poem from the knotted thickets of the Internet with comparative ease. So, here you go.
Reading An Anthology Of Chinese Poems Of The Song 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.
Billy Collins (1941- )
2 comments:
Collins is marvelous. You're much more widely read than I, so you may be able to name others who do what he does. He's the only poet I know who regularly almost invites me to be skeptical: This can't possibly be poetry. It has no structural tics, follows no form at all...
...and then draws me in anyway.
Thanks for this one. I don't remember having seen it before.
I know what you mean about that certain something Mr Collins manages to pull off so well.
But you mock me with your flattery, JES! More well-read than you? I think not. Certainly not these days, with my distaste for reading online, and my very limited access to book purchasing.
'Modern' poetry is an area in which I am particularly ill-read; so I'm afraid I can't recommend anyone else with that Collinsesque something.
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