Picnic, Lightning

I find poetry contagious,
like a yawn. Too much of it
and my thoughts break apart
into line and stanza,
metaphor dribbling out,
sticky sweet.

Old envelopes and backs of shopping lists
blank canvases for scrawled verse
until I find myself in the canned soup aisle
musing on a thought inspired by April rain
and too much Billy Collins
in one evening.

Trying to describe his work, I grasp
at elegant turns of phrase, like
inspired accessibility or
mundane transcendence.
I'll have to read some more of this, I think.
But not, perhaps, right away.

While many of these poems are worth reading, others feel more like the author thinking "what if" and writing a poem based on that supposition alone--this wouldn't be a problem, except in that sometimes that "what if I wrote a poem about..." thought is the most interesting (or only interesting) part of the poem. I've read Collins' work before, and really enjoyed it, but these just didn't live up to the other works I'd read from Collins. In general, they were often forgettable, and none were poems that I'd be driven to reread or bring into a classroom, which I've done with some of his other work. I'd recommend this book to fans of Collins, but if you're someone looking for a new poet to explore, I'd go with one of his earlier collections show more instead. These were rather simple for my taste, with too much allusion as the backbone of poems, and not enough language or thought-play. show less

[b: Picnic, Lightning|137110|Picnic, Lightning|Billy Collins|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1348574773s/137110.jpg|132141] is a collection of poetry by the two time Poet Laureate [a: Billy Collins|438|Billy Collins|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1385150456p2/438.jpg]. This book came highly recommended to me by my dear friend Carolyn, as indeed did all of the poetry books that have lately been filling my GoodReads shelves. This one in particular she said she had a feeling I'd like, and indeed I fell for it from the first the moment she explained the title to me. How was I to know the very contents of the book would not only live up to the intrigue of the title, but in many ways surpass it?

[a: Billy Collins|438|Billy show more Collins|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1385150456p2/438.jpg] has a wonderful poetic voice. His poetic power lies in the observation, which I'm fast discovering is just the sort of poetry I love. The wonder that is found in the every day, and the way the ordinary becomes extraordinary by virtue of a small shift in the way we look at things. The contents are delightful, amusing, and often just a bit surprising. They're something to be cherished, and something I'm sure I'll carry with me for some time.

I can't recommend this book of poetry enough. It's won a spot on my favorites shelf for the way it delighted me. show less

Reasons other people might love this book:

1. Easy to recommend, especially to people who don’t read a lot of poetry. I plan on giving my copy to my mom. It’s easy to read, easy to follow, and easy to put down at night. No emotional bombs and no c-words (I’m looking at you, Carolyn Forche.)

2. Billy Collins writes the most thematically vanilla poetry imaginable, which is a huge part of his appeal: “Oh, this is a poem about eating breakfast? I eat breakfast! This is so great.”

3. He’s a really good writer, and some of these poems are really good.

& Reasons I didn’t love this book:

1. Reasons #1 & 2 from above. I’m not one of those people with a snooty aversion to popular poets, but BC just takes accessibility and niceness to a show more level I find really boring. I read these poems in the middle of the night, at the point where my brain was already half asleep and I wasn’t committing myself 100% to anything but breathing, and this book felt right at my level. That says something, I think…

2. The format is really sucky. For too many of the poems, a page break comes at a point where the last line on one page feels like a good conclusion, then you turn the page and surprise! There’s another 3 stanzas to go. Distracting, and doesn’t do much for the integrity of the poems.

3. There are some really good poems in this book, MAYBE one or two great ones… but the good stuff to filler ratio seems skewed to the negative. Much of this impression comes down to personal preference, but so it goes. show less

I love Billy Collins and Picnic, Lightening does not disappoint. His poetry always leaves me feeling like I've been visiting with my grandfather. My favorite from this collection is - This Much I Do Remember. It put me in mind of Monet racing against the sun to capture a single, simple moment in time, a moment seemingly unimportant, yet forever fixed in your minds eye or, in Monet's case, an the canvas.

this is the first time i've read billy collins and i found myself totally charmed by him. he is funny, thoughtful, sad, insightful, smooth all at the same time. the imagery is spot on, almost always. especially liked the poem "marginalia."

Picnic, Lighting by Billy Collins is a wonderful book of poetry. Collins writes from the heart in a beautiful way about the things we see and do everyday but don't know how to put into words. He does that for us. You don't need a PHD to interpret his work. It's easy to read but short and I was finished reading it way to soon.