Collins, Billy. Sailing Alone around the room; new and selected poems.Random House. 172p. c2001.0-375-75519-5. $13.95. SA* Collins' extremely popular collection is finally available in paperback. Considering its success in hardcover, this edition is a sure-fire hit at a more attractive price. Collins' selection as America's Poet Laureate poet laureate (lô`rēĭt), title conferred in Britain by the monarch on a poet whose duty it is to write commemorative odes and verse. served as a public acknowledgment acknowledgment, in law, formal declaration or admission by a person who executed an instrument (e.g., a will or a deed) that the instrument is his. The acknowledgment is made before a court, a notary public, or any other authorized person. of his position in the contemporary poetry scene, but it also enhanced his popularity through exposure and this collection of his best work is a treasure. Collins' work is enormously appealing. It is comprehensible com·pre·hen·si·ble adj. Readily comprehended or understood; intelligible. [Latin compreh , universal, clever, original and perceptive. His humor humor, according to ancient theory, any of four bodily fluids that determined man's health and temperament. Hippocrates postulated that an imbalance among the humors (blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile) resulted in pain and disease, and that good health was , so pervasive in his public readings, is accessible on the page and his ability to build a poem from the mundane observation to the unexpected and insightful conclusion through shifting scope and focus is unmatched. His approach is unique in its disarming disarming removal of the crown of the canine teeth in primates. Includes denervation of the pulp cavity. familiarity, its unabashed honesty. For example, Collins opens his poem "Fishing on the Susquehanna in July" with the lines, "I have never been fishing on the Susquehanna I or any river for that matter I to be perfectly honest. I Not in July or any month...." And he ends his poem "Budapest" with "...while I gaze out the window and imagine Budapest I or some other city where I have never been." Both Collins and his work are at once charming and significant. This is the best of the best, a "must" for any serious collection of contemporary American poetry. James Beschta, retired English Teacher, Barre, MA |
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