Billy Collins
Billy Collins once said, “Poetry can do a lot of things to people. I mean it can improve your imagination. It can take you to new places. It can give you this incredible form of verbal pleasure.” Collins truly sends his readers to new places with his poems. Billy Collins writes with childhood, and memories as his main themes. By writing about childhood, and memories from the past Collins brings his reader into the poem. Everyone reading his poems has had a childhood, and has memories of that childhood, so they can put themselves into the poem and it has a much deeper meaning to the reader. Most of his poems are written in free verse. Writing in free verse allows him to write whatever he wants without worrying about following a specific rhyme
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scheme. This makes his poems more personal. Collins also creatively incorporates humor into some of his poems, which can help the poems to appeal to a younger audience that may not like all seriousness. Collins’ poems are very simplistic, but still have much greater meanings behind them.
Billy Collins poem, “Aimless Love”, is written in first person and spreads across the past, present, and future.
In the poem the narrator observes and appreciates his love for the simple things that he is seeing while walking in the street. The narrator is falling in love with everything around him, but he is yearning for a meaningful, loving relationship. Through the use of imagery and allusion Collins creates the theme that the little things in life are the things that truly matter, even though we yearn for more. In this poem, the imagery is quite plain and concise. Collins was very straightforward when describing what he saw. He says, “I walked along the lakeshore,/ I fell in love with a wren/ and later in the day with a mouse” (Collins 1-3). The “Aimless Love” that the narrator has for these things does not last for very long because he moves right on to loving the next thing he sees. He continues on when he “fell at a seamstress/ still at her machine in the tailor’s window,/ and later for a bowl of broth,/ steam rising like smoke from a naval battle” (6-9). The narrator is very clear and concise when describing what he saw. The narrator is still yearning for something more, but he can’t find it. He goes all over town searching, but he can't seem to find what he is looking for. He notices that he enjoys the simple things in life more than the “unkind words” (12) and the “silence on the telephone” (13) that comes along with relationships. He is not telling the reader to
be aimless, but to know what you are truly looking for before you start searching.
Collins alludes to the title and brushes it off as a theme. The narrator knows that he wants a real relationship and true love, without the unpleasant features that come with any relationship. A theme of this poem is not to be aimless, but to accept the yearning to love one another and appreciate the little things. In the end of the poem, the narrator catches himself staring at the bar of soap and he starts washing himself clean of his past, he is cleansing himself before he can continue on to his future.
This poem is one of Collins’ more serious works. There is no humor in this poem, but it is very simplistic like most of his pieces. Collins focuses on making a point, instead of using fluffy language to dance around the topic.
scheme. This makes his poems more personal. Collins also creatively incorporates humor into some of his poems, which can help the poems to appeal to a younger audience that may not like all seriousness. Collins’ poems are very simplistic, but still have much greater meanings behind them.
Billy Collins poem, “Aimless Love”, is written in first person and spreads across the past, present, and future.
In the poem the narrator observes and appreciates his love for the simple things that he is seeing while walking in the street. The narrator is falling in love with everything around him, but he is yearning for a meaningful, loving relationship. Through the use of imagery and allusion Collins creates the theme that the little things in life are the things that truly matter, even though we yearn for more. In this poem, the imagery is quite plain and concise. Collins was very straightforward when describing what he saw. He says, “I walked along the lakeshore,/ I fell in love with a wren/ and later in the day with a mouse” (Collins 1-3). The “Aimless Love” that the narrator has for these things does not last for very long because he moves right on to loving the next thing he sees. He continues on when he “fell at a seamstress/ still at her machine in the tailor’s window,/ and later for a bowl of broth,/ steam rising like smoke from a naval battle” (6-9). The narrator is very clear and concise when describing what he saw. The narrator is still yearning for something more, but he can’t find it. He goes all over town searching, but he can't seem to find what he is looking for. He notices that he enjoys the simple things in life more than the “unkind words” (12) and the “silence on the telephone” (13) that comes along with relationships. He is not telling the reader to
be aimless, but to know what you are truly looking for before you start searching.
Collins alludes to the title and brushes it off as a theme. The narrator knows that he wants a real relationship and true love, without the unpleasant features that come with any relationship. A theme of this poem is not to be aimless, but to accept the yearning to love one another and appreciate the little things. In the end of the poem, the narrator catches himself staring at the bar of soap and he starts washing himself clean of his past, he is cleansing himself before he can continue on to his future.
This poem is one of Collins’ more serious works. There is no humor in this poem, but it is very simplistic like most of his pieces. Collins focuses on making a point, instead of using fluffy language to dance around the topic.