#17

This week we read Billy Collins Picnic, Lightning. I really did not like this collections of poems as much as, Maire Howe The Good Thief. Most of Billy Collins throughout Picnic Lightning are very positive and he takes things out of everyday lightning and writes it into a poem that show a lot of meaning. I did find a poem that I enjoyed reading, if was the first in the book.

A Portrait of the Reader with a Bowl of Cereal - Billy Collins
"A Poet . . . never speaks directly, as to someone at the breakfast table." — Yeats

Every morning I sit across from you
at the same small table,
the sun all over the breakfast things—
curve of a blue-and-white pitcher,a dish of berries—
me in a sweatshirt or robe,
you invisible.

Most days, we are suspended
over a deep pool of silence.
I stare straight through you or look out the window at the garden,
the powerful sky,
a cloud passing behind a tree.

There is no need to pass the toast,
the pot of jam,
or pour you a cup of tea,
and I can hide behind the paper,
rotate in its drum of calamitous news.

But some days I may notice
a little door swinging open in
the morning air,
and maybe the tea leaves
or some dream will be stuck
to the china slope of the hour—


then I will lean forward,
elbows on the table,
with something to tell you,
and you will look up, as always,
your spoon dripping milk, ready to listen.

There are couple things that I admire about this poem. First, I do love the use of hyphen throughout this poem. I guess mainly because I really don't know how to use them but I like to see how other people use them. Also on that note, It was nice to see someone else besides Emily Dickinson use them because she is notorious for the use of hyphens. Next, I also like that this is a poem of contradictions. He is trying to decide if he should tell the woman or the other person who I assume he is eating breakfast with what he is thinking or how he is feeling. He just does not know how to do that or even approach the topic at the breakfast table. Finally, I also like how he refers to a bowl of cereal because that is real common in the American society. All most everyone has had a bowl of cereal at their house or even in a school cafeteria.