When someone tells me they “don’t get poetry” or something to that effect, I hand them one of former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins’s books. With his plain and simple language and perfection of lyrical informality, Collins is easy for anyone to read, digest, and understand. In his new poetry collection Water, Water, which comes out in November, his mastery of craft is on full display.
Poetry fans like myself will geek out over his word choice, pacing, and use of sound in each of the 60 poems, but what I think appeals to a wider audience is what Collins has to say. This collection goes deeper than his previous books. He’s more vulnerable than ever before, and the poems in Water, Water should be read and studied by men everywhere. It’s a treatise on aging, relationships, art, and modern life through the lens of a poetic master.
1. We All Have Our Eccentricities
Nobody is perfect. We all have our own little things, our own eccentricities, and in Water, Water, Collins delves into these, showing a side of himelf not showcased in his other collections. It’s a nice reminder that we’re not alone in having weird behaviours.
In his poem “The Cardinal” Collins dives into the way he reports little things to his wife, inconsequential things, like running into a friend or noticing the flag is at half-mast. The poem is about the thought of keeping things to himself when he sees a cardinal in the backyard. In the end, he tells her and also tells her about how he thought about keeping it to himself. It’s an admission of the eccentricities and also an acknowledgment that they’re okay. A simple acceptance of oneself.
2. You Won’t Always Age Gracefully
Aging is something Collins has done well. He’s stayed relevant in his field and managed to garner more respect from people of multiple generations than most. However, even he isn’t immune to the awkwardness that sometimes comes with age.
In his poem “When a Man Loves Something,” he remarks on the miscues he is having more often. He recounts a scene in a store where a girl “glanced up at me as if I were from another planet,” after making a remark about the fancy pastries. His admission makes you reflect on aging. How the past might as well be another planet to the young sometimes, and how we’re all still living on this planet together. It helps the embarrassing moment seem small and inconsequential, even though it isn’t to him.
3. The Details Matter
Part of Collins’s mastery is his attention to detail. Whether it’s a cardinal fluttering down onto the deck or a Chinese porcelain bowl sitting on a small table—anything can trigger a memory or end up being a stand-out feature of a moment.
Collin’s attention to detail makes you realize just how much of life passes you by without really taking a moment to contemplate. We can’t all spend the time that Collins does with the details in our lives, but we could all slow down a bit, step away from our screens and take a second to try to notice the details.
4. Make Yourself Laugh
One of the defining characteristics of Collins’s poetry is his style of humor. Collins can find humor in most topics, and sometimes he’ll fall right into the truly absurd. The first quarter of his new book does this quite often, poking fun at such things as the concept of joy, the alphabet, Adam from the Bible naming items on Earth, and dogs in a pub.
He uses wordplay and personification to make it happen. It’s fun to read and clear that Collins had fun himself with these poems. They’re silly in a way that is very specific to the poet, and it shows that you can and should indulge in your own style of humor.
5. Remember the Good and the Bad
Collins writes with such candor that he lays the topic bare, exposing the beauty in it. He does this about positive topics plenty, discussing the power of youth and the nice memories with his wife, but he doesn’t shy away from uncomfortable topics either.
His radical candor has a devastating effect. The poem “Anniversary” is a poem about the death of a young boy, and in it he finds solace in the imagination of new life. In “Deep Time” he describes being left by his wife but takes solace in the immense history of the universe.
Whether he’s writing about love, aging, or loss, he proves that our lives are a beautiful mosaic of moments worth appreciating. Water, Water is about not shutting anything out, whether it’s good or bad.
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