Call Me Wordsworth, Billy
No one in their right mind would publish the poem below, for fear of Billy Collins' wrath. In a way, it is a very pro-Collins poem, but I think it could also be misunderstood. I saw/heard Collins at a reading at MLK Library in D.C. and gave this poem to him after having my book signed. He took it, sort of briskly; he probably gets all kinds of strange people giving him crap he doesn't want to read. I wonder what he thinks of it? (Is calling myself Wordsworth a little too much?)
Call Me Wordsworth, Billy
by Donald Illich
People love accordion music,
a statement you can disagree with.
It's opinion, not a fact, like a girl's
not a boy, unless there's an operation.
Just the same, I love to wear dresses,
long peasant ones that hide my lines,
mini-skirts that leave them open
to sexy review. Scan me, honey,
these are authentic iambs you can
take home to little Italian sonnets.
Others wonder if I really love
Billy Collins, since he's just a date
everyone calls low class but screws
late at night under the bleachers.
I gave him my pin of daffodil clouds
but he's stopped calling me Wordsworth.
I won't beat a meaning from you
Billy, I'll treat you right.
Brautigan wrote about sleeping
with a girl at a bookstore. Did those
go out of business in the Sixties?
Should I stop hanging out
in the human sexuality section?
Stephen King says he gets his ideas
from a child's heart he keeps in a jar.
Someone should call the police.
Parents ask the boy where he left it,
and all he can do is point, point,
to a copy of "Carrie" he's afraid to read.
posted by Don at 9:07 AM
2 Comments:
There's kind of a halting quality between the stanzas--moving from one topic of mockery to the next, I suppose--but this poem made me laugh out loud. Great title. The gestures toward other authors at the end work quite well. It's a shame if Billy Collins couldn't see past his own snarkiness and appreciate this. = )
I agree with you about the halting quality -- I wonder if there's some way I could tie them all together more and make it flow better. I should try eventually.
Thank you for the compliments on the poem. The poem was originally written in the Jenny McKean Moore class, where we were supposed to write about our muse. I wrote 4 poems for the assignment, and this was one of them. I guess I was writing about some of the muses I've had in my life -- Brautigan, Collins, and for better or worse, Stephen King.
I'm doubtful Collins read the poem, but I hope he was amused at least a little, if he did.
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