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Nine
Horses: Poems by Billy Collins Rating: ••• (Recommended) |
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Gallops If you haven’t read any of the poems of
our current poet laureate, Billy Collins, you may as well start with his
latest collection, Nine
Horses. Collins is a writer for our time, and captures humor and sadness
with equal skill. Here’s a sample, the title poem: Nine
Horses For my birthday, my wife gave me nine horse heads, ghostly photographs on squares of black marble, nine squares set in one large square, a thing so heavy that the artist himself volunteered to hang it from a wood beam against a white stone wall. Pale heads of horses in profile as if a flashcube had caught them walking in the
night Pale horse heads that overlook my reading chair, the eyes so hollow they must be weeping, the mouths so agape they could be dead— the photographer standing over them on a floor of straw, his black car parked by the
stable door. Nine white horses, or one
horse the camera has multiplied by nine. If hardly matters, such sadness is gathered here in their long white faces so far from the pasture and the cube of sugar— the face of St. Bartholomew, the face of St. Agnes. Odd team of horses, pulling nothing, look down on these daily proceedings. Look down upon this table and these glasses, the furled napkins, the evening wedding of the knife and fork. Look down like a nine-headed god and give us a sign of your displeasure or your gentle forbearance so that we may rejoice in the error of our ways. Look down on this ring of candles flickering under your pale heads. Let your suffering eyes and your anonymous deaths be the bridle that keeps us from straying from each
other be the cinch that fastens us to the belly of each
day as it gallops away, hooves sparking into the night. Treat yourself to many pleasurable moments
as you enjoy the poems of Billy Collins in Nine
Horses. Steve Hopkins, January 1, 2003 |
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ã 2003 Hopkins and Company, LLC The
recommendation rating for this book appeared in the February 2003
issue of Executive
Times For
Reprint Permission, Contact: Hopkins
& Company, LLC • 723 North Kenilworth Avenue • Oak Park, IL 60302 E-mail: books@hopkinsandcompany.com |
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