The Journey Of Collins

Traveling makes a person become different, and that is what happens to this poet.

William James Collins, also known as Billy Collins, is an American poet born in New York,

United States on March 22, 1940. Collins is well known for both his “​Poet Laureate​ of the

United States​” title during 2001 to 2003 and “​New York State Poet​” title during 2004 to 2006.

As many people could notice by reading many of Collins’ poems, he travels a lot which doesn’t

make us wonder why sometimes his poem titles are the name of places he has been to. And

within the poem, he uses imagery a lot of times to talk about that place. Collins uses imagery in

his poems to express that traveling could change a person from the inside to be calmer through

the relaxing atmosphere of the places, the subtle culture that the places contain and the beauty of

nature.

In ​January In Paris​, Collins uses imageries to show the relaxing atmosphere of Paris to

express that people can become calmer by being exposed to physical features. There are many

unique characteristics of France that are recognizable such as vintage-styled buildings, clothes

French people wear, bakery, wines and many more. Some of those were also mentioned in

Collins’ ​January In Paris​ too. In this poem, he talks about when he was bored and went down

from his room of a small hotel to bike around Paris. He saw many French facilities, many people

and most importantly, the poems of Paul Valery, a French poet. Collins ended the poem by

showing him smoking near a window at dawn. Collins uses the imagery showing the uniqueness

of France that provides the reader feels relax by writing “In my pale coat and my Basque cap / I

pedaled past the windows of a patisserie” (Collins, 2006) in the fifth stanza. The beauty of Paris

and its atmosphere, in many people’s perspective, are already very calming. Collins emphasizes
it more by his imagery shown in the selected lines. He uses Basque cap and patisserie to express

the relaxing atmosphere of France and uses cycling to make the picture in the reader’s mind

progress slowly, instead of using cars which could ruin the relaxing mood. For the patisserie, a

French bakery, that Collins mentions in the second line, it expresses the relaxing moment in a

bakery filled with nice sweet smell that soothes through one’s lungs and mind, hence a calmer

atmosphere. With those imageries, Collins tries to tell the readers that as he is traveling to Paris,

the atmosphere of the country really makes him a calmer person. Other than features of a place,

its culture is another thing which Collins mentions in his poems that could make him become

calmer.

In ​Japan​, Collins uses imageries to show a kind of Japanese literature to express that

religion and culture could make a person become calmer from the inside. ‘Koan’ is a kind of

Japanese literature used in Zen Buddhism for provoking thoughts and it could either make sense

or no sense at all. Zen Buddhism, a school of Mahayana Buddhism that originated from China

and was spread to Vietnam, Korea, and Japan, is well known for its silence and self-control.

Collins uses the concept of Zen Buddhist to express calmness that could be experienced in Japan

by writing “​I stand by the big silence of the piano and say it. / I say it in front of a painting of the

sea. / I tap out its rhythm on an empty shelf. / I listen to myself saying it, / then I say it without

listening, / then I hear it without saying it.” (Collins, 1998). ​In the first selected line, he

mentioned “the big silence of the piano” which seems like Collins wanted to say something

about the piano, but he doesn’t. Instead, he’s referring to the silence of the Zen Culture that is

widely and subtly known in Japan and used in their religious practice to reach calmness. In the

following lines, that also extends until the end of the poem, Collins then use imageries to
illustrate a koan inside the reader’s head to provoke their thoughts, thus calming them down.

Through these aspects of Japanese culture, Collins once again tries to show that the culture

influenced him to be a calmer person. Related to culture, nature of a place is another main factor

of traveling that could ease off Collins’ mind.

In ​Canada​, static and slow-going nature of Canada is shown by the imageries of Collins

to express that nature makes people mind also become calmer. One of the first things that come

into a person’s mind when talking about Canada other than maple syrup would be its nature and

the cold air. The nature of Canada is not limited only to maple trees and forests, but also ranging

from mountains, prairies, glaciers to lots of lakes. These elements of Canada makes it a great

place for a relaxing vacation. In the first stanza, Collins uses imageries to create a scenery of

Canada natural features to express that nature could make create calmness inside himself by

writing “I am writing this on a strip of white birch bark / that I cut from a tree with a penknife. /

There is no other way to express adequately / the immensity of the clouds that are passing over

the farms / and wooded lakes of Ontario and the endless visibility / that hands you the horizon on

a platter.” (Collins, 1995). In the first two lines, Collins uses an imagery of him writing the poem

on a narrow piece of birch bark to begin the picture of nature in the northern part of the world

then later specifies the place by telling the reader “Ontario” in the fifth line. He tells the readers

that there’s no explanation about Canada more satisfying than huge clouds traveling across farms

and endless view of the large Lake Ontario giving the reader horizon, in the rest of the stanza.

Those sceneries settle the readers through the slow-moving clouds in the sky loosening our

minds and the view of Lake Ontario that is large enough to put our minds into wonder and

thoughts, thus making us a calmer person.

 With these imageries of calmness in the air, religious beliefs, and elegant features of

nature, Collins tells the readers that to travel to other countries changes them into a calmer

person. Atmosphere of Paris that Collins presented in ​January In Paris​ expresses that people

could become calmer by just the place’s features. In ​Japan​, Collins uses Japanese culture

influenced by its religion to show that culture turns people minds into a quiet and relaxing one

inside out. Collins states that the slow progression of nature makes people mind calm when they

are exposed to, in ​Canada​. Without any doubt, Collins tries to tell his readers that traveling could

make any people calmer through different aspects of the place.

 POEMS

January In Paris

"A poem is never finished, only abandoned." - Paul Valery

That winter I had nothing to do

but tend the kettle in my shuttered room

on the top floor of a pensione near a cemetery,

but I would sometimes descend the stairs,

unlock my bicycle, and pedal along the cold city streets

often turning from a wide boulevard

down a narrow side street

bearing the name of an obscure patriot.

I followed a few private rules,

never crossing a bridge without stopping

mid-point to lean my bike on the railing.

and observe the flow of the river

as I tried to better understand the French.

In my pale coat and my Basque cap

I pedaled past the windows of a patisserie

or sat up tall in the seat, arms folded,

and clicked downhill filling my nose with winter air.

I would see beggars and street cleaners

in their bright uniforms, and sometimes

I would see the poems of Valery,

the ones he never finished but abandoned,

wandering the streets of the city half clothed.

Most of them needed only a final line

or two, a little verbal flourish at the end,

but whenever I approached,

they would retreat from their makeshift fires

into the shadows- thin specters of incompletion,

forsaken for so many long decades

how could they ever trust another man with a pen?

I came across the one I wanted to tell you about

sitting with a glass of rose’ at a cafe’ table-

beautiful, emaciated, unfinished,

cruelly abandoned with a flick of panache

by Monsieur Paul Valery himself,

big fish in the school of Symbolism

and for a time, president of the Committee of Arts and Letters

of the League of Nations if you please.

Never mind how I got her out of the cafe’,

past the concierge and up the flight of stairs-

remember that Paris is the capital of public kissing.

And never mind the holding and the pressing.

It is enough to know that I moved my pen

in such a way as to bring her to completion,

a simple, final stanza, which ended,

as this poem will, with the image

of a gorgeous orphan lying on a rumpled bed,

her large eyes closed,

a painting of cows in a valley over her head,

and off to the side, me in a window seat

blowing smoke from a cigarette at dawn.

Japan

Today I pass the time reading

a favorite haiku,

saying the few words over and over.

It feels like eating

the same small, perfect grape

again and again.

I walk through the house reciting it

and leave its letters falling

through the air of every room.

I stand by the big silence of the piano and say it.

I say it in front of a painting of the sea.

I tap out its rhythm on an empty shelf.

I listen to myself saying it,

then I say it without listening,

then I hear it without saying it.

And when the dog looks up at me,

I kneel down on the floor

and whisper it into each of his long white ears.

It's the one about the one-ton temple bell

with the moth sleeping on its surface,

and every time I say it, I feel the excruciating

pressure of the moth

on the surface of the iron bell.

When I say it at the window,

the bell is the world

and I am the moth resting there.

When I say it at the mirror,

I am the heavy bell

and the moth is life with its papery wings.

And later, when I say it to you in the dark,

you are the bell,

and I am the tongue of the bell, ringing you,

and the moth has flown

from its line

and moves like a hinge in the air above our bed.

Canada

I am writing this on a strip of white birch bark

that I cut from a tree with a penknife.

There is no other way to express adequately

the immensity of the clouds that are passing over the farms

and wooded lakes of Ontario and the endless visibility

that hands you the horizon on a platter.

I am also writing this in a wooden canoe,

a point of balance in the middle of Lake Couchiching,

resting the birch bark against my knees.

I can feel the sun’s hands on my bare back,

but I am thinking of winter,

snow piled up in all the provinces

and the solemnity of the long grain-ships

that pass the cold months moored at Owen Sound.

O Canada, as the anthem goes,

scene of my boyhood summers,

you are the pack of Sweet Caporals on the table,

you are the dove-soft train whistle in the night,

you are the empty chair at the end of an empty dock.

You are the shelves of books in a lakeside cottage:

Gift from the Sea​ by Anne Morrow Lindbergh,

A Child’s Garden of Verses​ by Robert Louis Stevenson,

Anne of Avonlea​ by L. M. Montgomery,

So You’re Going to Paris!​ by Clara E. Laughlin,

and ​Peril Over the Airport​, one

of the Vicky Barr Flight Stewardess series

by Helen Wills whom some will remember

as the author of the Cherry Ames Nurse stories.

What has become of the languorous girls

who would pass the long limp summer evenings reading

Cherry Ames, Student Nurse, Cherry Ames, Senior Nurse,

Cherry Ames, Chief Nurse,​ and ​Cherry Ames, Flight Nurse?

Where are they now, the ones who shared her adventures

as a veterans’ nurse, private duty nurse, visiting nurse,

cruise nurse, night supervisor, mountaineer nurse,

dude ranch nurse (there is little she has not done),

rest home nurse, department store nurse,

boarding school nurse, and country doctor's nurse?

Reference

Collins, Billy (1995). Canada. The Poetry Foundation. Retrieved from

​https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46705/canada-56d226acee378

Collins, B. (1998). Japan. In Picnic, Lightning (pp. 51-52). Pittsburgh, Pa.: University of

Pittsburgh Press, Selected poems by Billy Collins. Retrieved from

​https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt9qh818

Collins, Billy (2006). January in Paris. The Poetry Foundation. Retrieved from

​https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?volume=187&issue=4&page=23