Billy Collins Reads

Last night, I saw Billy Collins read.  It was like a sort of religious experience.  I don't say that lightly or facetiously.  He was amazing.  There, standing at the front of that large room in front of all of us, he was so kind to a group that was tired yet eager, weary yet waiting for his words like rain on parched earth. Oh, and he didn't fail us. 

All day long, we'd been trapped in our chairs reading variations on the same three themes.  Well, I guess in fairness to my colleagues in AP Lang, I should say six themes, perhaps.  The quality of these essays ranged from moments of sublimity to long patches of the absurd, but regardless of the merit, the rating of them was and is hard work.  That's what made Mr. Collins' reading so wonderful.  It was a feeding of the soul, a recharging, a reminder of what we love so much and what we want to pass along to those lovelies who come into our classrooms every year. 

After the reading, he stayed to sign, and although I do not get people to sign things because I have always thought it was strange to pursue someone's name written in something, I have a signed copy of one of his books.  I felt strange the whole time I did it.  I wanted to apologize most fervently for asking it.  If I hadn't been getting something signed to give as a gift, I probably wouldn't have done it.  But I did, and I am glad now, even if it does still feel strange to have stood in a line for a very long time to ask a person I do not know and greatly admire to write his name in a book for me.

What I would have liked would have been to have talked to him.  These are the things that don't happen, you know.  I would have liked to have asked him questions about poetry, about being a poet, things that are probably so presumptuous coming from a nothing to a deity that I'm not even going to write them here.  I wish life worked like that sometimes, though. I probably wouldn't have been able to overcome my shyness to talk to him, anyway.

Last night, I heard poems of his that I knew and ones I'm not as familiar with, but every single one I heard, I loved.  And want.  And wish, in the secret burning envy of my poet's heart, I could figure out the inside workings of like an amateur magician sitting down with a handkerchief and a limb broken from a tree and trying to duplicate something once done by Houdini.  I'll have to have more of Mr. Collins' books now, just so I can be sure I have all the things he read for us last night and all the things he didn't.  Maybe if I study long enough, even though I'll never fool the crowds with my sleight of hand, I can at least amuse myself more prettily.