13thWR

Sailing Alone Around the Room, New and Selected Poems by Billy Collins (Random House, $21.95, 172 pgs.)

Billy Collins' newest book follows on the heels of his appointment as U.S. Poet Laureate so closely that its publication smells like a marketing ploy. Yet, ploy or not, he is at the height of his popularity and after so long without a new collection it was about time, I suppose.

On the surface, his poems are unpretentious and plain-spoken, yet just under the skin, lies another layer of wit wrapped in the cleverest of metaphors. In "The Death of Allegory," he states that ". . .the great ideas on horseback . . .have traveled down that road . . .that winds up a green hillside and disappears. . ." In another poem he compares a poet to "a wet dog . . . no one wants anything to do with. . ."

There are a terrible number of poems in this book that are about poetry, which goes against conventional wisdom. However, I'd have to say that his observations in which he compares contemporary American poetry to "a picture postcard" or that critics want "to tie the poem to a chair . . . and torture a confession out of it" are dead-on accurate.

I have to admit that although I am not a major fan of Billy Collins' poetry, I enjoyed this book, nonetheless. To me, Collins is like the small-town goober who outsmarts the over-confident city-slicker. He's smarter than his staunchest critics are willing to admit, and he's always in his element.

- reviewed by JCE