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"By now it should go without saying that what the oven is to the baker, and the berry-stained blouse is to the dry cleaner, so the window is to the poet," said Billy Collins, former Poet Laureate (2001-2003), in his poem on the rituals and routines of poets.
Collins spoke Thursday as students spilled into the crowded Devlin 008 to hear the two-year laureate read from a selection of his poems. His works sometimes poked fun at the oddities of poets and poetry, while others weaved themes of time, love, and the human experience.
Even before he began to speak, Collins was greeted with applause from the estimated 350 people in attendance. It set the tone for the polished performer, said Paul Doherty, director of the Lowell Humanitarian Lecture Series and English professor.
"He was quite touched by the fact that he was applauded when he came in," said Doherty. "He really enjoyed himself."
Collins began with three poems that he said established the "coordinates of the poetry exchange." The first was an idealized depiction of the reader, ready to listen to the knowledge offered in poetry.
The aforementioned second poem, titled "Monday," described the habits of poets in their writing process. The third work was about poetry itself, titled "The Trouble with Poetry."
"The trouble with poetry, I realized as I walked along the beach one night - cold, hard sand under my bare feet, chilled stars in the sky - the trouble with poetry is that it encourages the writing of more poetry," he said.
His style of wry humor and deep observations gives him a broad appeal, said Doherty. "He is well known as somebody who people who aren't poets themselves can listen to and enjoy," he said.
Following the first three poems, Collins read a humorous love poem in which a man compares his "beloved" to a number of objects. Before he began reading, he mused that what women really want are similes, drawing loud audience laughter.
He went on to recite poems that gave human qualities to the animal world. One poem focused on the writings of different birds, another about cats, and another about the silent loathing a dog had for his owner.
"I would have gone away but I was too weak," the fictional dog said in Collins' poem. "The trick you taught while I was learning to sit and heel, the greatest of insults, to shake hands without a hand."
Writing about the emotions of a dead dog or the editorial writing of a crow, things that may seem trivial, were important to Collins' development as a poet, he said. Learning that there was nothing left to say ironically improved his writing.
One of his poems concerned his thoughts on the alphabet during a dull day, a work he said he was proud to be about very little.
He did not shy away, however, from heavier topics; one of his poems, "Building With Its Face Blown Off," described the scene of a structure that had just been bombed.
"Some neighbors poke around in the rubble below, and stare up at the hanging staircase, the portrait of a grandfather, the door dangling from the single hinge, and the bathroom looks almost embarrassed by its uncovered ogre walls."
After reading more poems about haikus, the human memory, and love, Collins closed with a poem on feeling bittersweet about the passage of time.
"As usual I was thinking about the moments in the past, in my memory, rushing over them like water rushing over the stones on the bottom of the stream," said Collins. "I was even thinking a little about the future, that place where people are doing a dance we cannot imagine; a dance whose name we can only guess."
When he ended, the audience offered a standing ovation.
The poet is the last for the spring semester in the Lowell Humanities Series, which has been bringing speakers to BC since 1957.
Collins is the author of six books of poetry, including Questions About Angels (1991), The Art of Drowning (1995), and most recently Sailing Alone Around the Room (2002).
He said that he has another book coming out in October, titled The Trouble with Poetry: And Other Poems.
He currently is a Distinguished Professor of English at Lehman College in New York, where he has taught for the last 30 years.
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