Sailing Alone Around the Room

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Title: Sailing Alone Around The Room: New and Selected Poems
Author: Billy Collins
Pages: 172
Publication Year: 2001
Count for Year: 34

Earlier this year, I read and reviewed 180 More: Extraordinary Poems for Every Day, which was edited by Billy Collins. In that review, I discussed his view of “accessible” poetry and mentioned that you could pick almost any poem in that collection and find a clear entrance, as he calls into, into the poem. You can do the same in this collection of poems from four previous books, from 1988 to 1998, and new poetry.

Like that review, I’ll take a few examples of his work to illustrate:

The name of the author is the first to go,
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly becomes one you have never read, never
even heard of

– Forgetfulness

In that last one, you also see a reoccurring theme within his work, his love for books, which is shown in this next example:

I can see them standing politely on the wide pages
that I was still learning to turn,
Jane in a blue jumper, Dick with his crayon-brown hair,
playing with a ball or exploring the cosmos
of the backyard, unaware they are the first characters,
the boy and girl who begin fiction.
– First Reader

Another recurring theme is his love of poetry and playing with the poem as in “Sonnet” where he begins:

All we need is fourteen lines, well, thirteen now,,
and after this one, just a dozen,
to launch a little ship on love’s storm-tossed seas,
then only ten more left like rows of beans.

You don’t always know where the poem is going, even if you do have a clear entrance into his poems, and I think for me, that is why I enjoy them so much.

I could go on and on and give more examples of Collins at his best, of which this collection showcases him, but that would ruin your own reading of the book, which I highly encourage for all, whether you are a lover of poetry or not.

Like that last review, I also give this Collins work, this time, his own, in my:

Final Analysis: a 10 out of 10. However, I think I’ll have to stop reading him for a while, because I’m getting spoiled with giving out these 10 out of 10s. I need to find more 7 out of 10s or even a 6 out of 10 to counterbalance the influence of Collins.

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