Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #405320 in Books
• Published on: 1998-01-29
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 104 pages

Amazon.com
In these playful, conversational poems, Billy Collins immerses us in the minutiae of a life--cow viewing, parsley chopping, "buzzing around on espresso"--and restores a sense of wonder. In a voice half confessional, half avuncular, he takes us by the hand and shares his deepest secrets. Whether shoveling snow with the Buddha, releasing Emily Dickinson from her corsets, spoofing Auden and Wordsworth, or putting words in the mouths of Victoria's Secret models ("So what if I am wearing nothing / but this stretch panne velvet bodysuit ... Do you have a problem with that?!"), Collins is a pure delight. In one of several poems in which jazz figures prominently, he amusingly considers well-known but ne'er-acknowledged facial expressions such as "the languorous droop," "pained concentration," and "existential bemusement." Similarly, in "Marginalia" he caps off a list of scribblings with a pointed request for all to step forward who "have managed to graduate from college / without ever having written 'Man vs. Nature'" in a margin.

Though there is plenty to make us laugh, Collins is more than a mere comic genius. On the contrary, he balances the ribald with the poignant, the over-the-top with the serenely beautiful:

And the soul is up on the roof
in her nightdress, straddling the ridge,
singing a song about the wildness of the sea
until the first rip of pink appears in the sky.
Then, they all will return to the sleeping body
the way a flock of birds settles back into a tree...

In the opening poem ("A Portrait of the Reader with a Bowl of Cereal"), Collins defies William Butler Yeats's advice to "never speak directly, / as to someone at the breakfast table." Instead, he promises to "lean forward, / elbows on the table, / with something to tell you." One hundred pages later, we thank him for a promise kept. --Martha Silano

From The New Yorker
What Collins does best is turn an apparently simple phrase into a numinous moment....

From Booklist
The easy swing of Collins' lines reflects his love of jazz and his ready response to beauty; the warmth of his voice emanates from his instinct for pleasure and his propensity toward humor. The title poem, for instance, is an improvisation on a terse description of a fatal freak accident in Nabokov's Lolita in which Collins, ever on the lookout for that old silver lining, or the happy bafflement of a koan, turns his contemplation of "the instant hand of Death / always ready to burst forth" into a subtle celebration of life. It's all in the mind, he implies, writing most ebulliently and perceptively about the realm of the imagination: an evening spent reading the F section of a single-volume encyclopedia becomes the catalyst for a hilarious sequence of thoughts, and a tour through the candy-smooth pages of a Victoria's Secret catalog evolves into a performance of great wit and sweet self-mockery. Collins is jazzman and Buddhist, charmer and prince. Donna Seaman

Customer Reviews

Picnic, Lightning
I really enjoyed Picnic, Lightning. I like poetry a lot. I really enjoyed this book because you can relate yourself to it in so many differnt ways. Anyone who reads a poem from this book and interpret it in their own way. You can make the poem be whatever you want it to be.

For example, i was reading Aristotle and the futher i got into the poem i started to think he might have been talking to a high school student and giving them a dose of reality. I started to ponder this and realized that the title was Aristotle. Billy Collins was speaking of life itself. Anybody can relate to a poem if you just give it the time of day.

Overall, the book was nicely put together. I enjoy the fact that Billy Collilns isn't like every other poet. He takes ordinary things that would happen in a day and elaborates. He has his own style and he sticks with it no matter what critics may say. I was really into the book. It's one i can say "hits the spot."

A note to the more gullible members of the audience
I love Billy Collins, he is a genious poet. He can take the most mundane topics, turning ten, a new day, a peach, and make them in to fascinating topics to read about.

I would like to note however - the paradelle is NOT a real form of poetry from 11th century France. He made it up. You've been hoaxed if you believed this. It may be hard to write - but intentionally so. The man prefers free verse - he was mocking fixed styles.

So if you here any comments about the questionable quality of "A Paradelle for Susan" - try to remember - this was intentional!

Thank you.

good
I don't know what else to say about Billy Collins that I haven't said elsewhere. He's a remarkable poet, who does his thing and does it well. Picnic, Lightning is a pretty solid collection of poems, though if you have Collins's selected poems there's no need to pick this one up. Those that weren't included in the selected aren't very good, with the exception of "I Go Back to the House For a Book," which I think is a marvelous poem and should have been included in the selected poems.