Billy reads

Tonight, Middlebury College welcomes Billy Collins to Santa Fe for a poetry reading and reception. He is the former poet laureate of the United States which means he was designated by the US Library of Congress to be an ambassador for poetry and to work at compiling and composing books of poetry. One of his compiled books I would really love to read in the near future is Poetry 180—a poem for each day of the school year. I quite like the cleverness of the title, so I can only imagine the genius that's inside. ;)

His poetry is very clear and distinct. When I shared a poem with Enoch the other day, he commented that he might be more of a fan of poetry now if this were the kind of poetry he had been exposed to in school. Collins is definitely more in the tradition of Robert Frost than say a TS Eliot or Ezra Pound.

Here's a sampling I find appropriate in light of Father's Day. I know it's about a son and his mother, but apply it to the sentiment of parents in general. More than anything, enjoy it, and I will be sure to write a report of hearing him read and hopefully have photos for tomorrow's blog.

The Lanyard

Billy Collins

The other day I was ricocheting slowly
off the blue walls of this room,
moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.

No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one into the past more suddenly—
a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp
by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid long thin plastic strips
into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.

I had never seen anyone use a lanyard
or wear one, if that’s what you did with them,
but that did not keep me from crossing
strand over strand again and again
until I had made a boxy
red and white lanyard for my mother.

She gave me life and milk from her breasts,
and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sick room,
lifted spoons of medicine to my lips,
laid cold face-cloths on my forehead,
and then led me out into the airy light

and taught me to walk and swim,
and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.
Here are thousands of meals, she said,
and here is clothing and a good education.
And here is your lanyard, I replied,
which I made with a little help from a counselor.

Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
strong legs, bones and teeth,
and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,
and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.
And here, I wish to say to her now,
is a smaller gift—not the worn truth

that you can never repay your mother,
but the rueful admission that when she took
the two-tone lanyard from my hand,
I was as sure as a boy could be
that this useless, worthless thing I wove
out of boredom would be enough to make us even.