Higher Learning

We're taking my son to college today, and I'm wondering how his mind and heart will be changed by the next four years. All I know is that I won't be there to direct it, and that's a good thing. At least I think so when I read this poem by Billy Collins---which seems to capture the absurd twists, high pleasure and zig-zaggy fun of finding things out for yourself.

Workshop

by Billy Collins

I might as well begin by saying how much I like the title. 
 
It gets me right away because I’m in a workshop now 
 
so immediately the poem has my attention, 
 
like the Ancient Mariner grabbing me by the sleeve. 
 

 
And I like the first couple of stanzas, 
 
the way they establish this mode of self-pointing 
 
that runs through the whole poem 
 
and tells us that words are food thrown down 
 
on the ground for other words to eat. 
 
I can almost taste the tail of the snake 
 
in its own mouth, 
 
if you know what I mean. 
 

 
But what I’m not sure about is the voice, 
 
which sounds in places very casual, very blue jeans, 
 
but other times seems standoffish, 
 
professorial in the worst sense of the word 
 
like the poem is blowing pipe smoke in my face. 
 
But maybe that’s just what it wants to do. 
 

 
What I did find engaging were the middle stanzas, 
 
especially the fourth one. 
 
I like the image of clouds flying like lozenges 
 
which gives me a very clear picture. 
 
And I really like how this drawbridge operator 
 
just appears out of the blue 
 
with his feet up on the iron railing 
 
and his fishing pole jigging—I like jigging— 
 
a hook in the slow industrial canal below. 
 
I love slow industrial canal below. All those l’s. 
 

 
Maybe it’s just me, 
 
but the next stanza is where I start to have a problem. 

Read the rest or listen to Billy Collins read it here

Poetry Friday is hosted today by The Boy Reader.