酷我-北美枫

[anna]

if let me choose poems of Billy Collins or Li-Young Lee, guess whose I will?
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John Tiong Chunghoo, Gary Blankenship and Baron James Ashanti like this.

Bruce Meyer Collins is overrated. Half the time he's just talking to himself. Sometimes he has something interesting to say, but most of the time he is king of blah blah.
17 hours ago · Unlike · 2

Anna Yin I agree, Collins is like a maker of poetry... playing words... but the true natural poet is Li-Young Lee, the words into your heart and feeling...
16 hours ago · Edited · Like

Anna Yin Collins made poetry so popular in USA and promote poetry so well, I admire both of them...
16 hours ago · Like

Mel Sarnese I like Billy Collins...More my style poetry.
16 hours ago · Unlike · 1

Lynn Tait Yes, guilty as charged. I too enjoy Collins.
10 hours ago · Unlike · 1

Anna Yin I like the wisdom and humour in Collins. but Lee's will make me cry.
3 hours ago · Edited · Like


John B. Lee I tell my hockey pals, "Better a good play that fails than a bad play that succeeds." Only a limited number of people understand what I mean. A bad play that succeeds reinforces poor play, rewards mediocrity with the illusion that doing the same thing again will succeed. How is this relevant to Billy Collins? Many years ago my friend Don McKay warned me, after I wowed a crowd of his students at Western with a particularly exhilarating reading, entertaining the hell out of his students, "Beware the audience. It can ruin the work." I read a caveat in Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky's book, "The Sounds of Poetry: a brief guide," ..."the true measure of the quality of a poem is to be had in the absence of the personality of the poet." So, however much I love or admire the work of Billy Collins, and I do enjoy his best work, there is far too much pandering to the audience, entertaining as it may be, in his work. A shallowing of his writing occurred when he was Poet Laureate. The audience he acquired was rarely disturbed, and rarely deeply moved, profoundly changed by the experience of his poetry. He seemed seduced by the perfume of his own aura, the POET as entertainer, the stand-up comedian, the least valuable quality of the poem, the deep well lingering long enough to feel deeply, know in the soul what it means to be human. When the laughter dies, when the imagination examines itself and realizes the experience was novel without being truly challenging, and so, Collins satisfies, but does not disturb, agitate, confuse, and hook deep where poetry illuminates, transforms, and lingers in the limpid darkness where we must carry the light to see. I love his work, but it isn't of this order, especially after he became poet laureate. Or so I find. Beware the audience, it can ruin the work. all good things, John B. Lee
20 minutes ago · Unlike · 1

Anna Yin dear John B. Lee, thanks for your thoughts... I feel the same... I do think it is great to engage the audience, but need more to be left... I wrote several poems after reading his books...for me, reading Lee, I feel have touching a real human, yet with Collins, life is much empty...The Trouble with Poetry
—for Billy Collins

I tell the man next to me
how you engage the reader;
like others, I am hooked.

Apparently he rarely reads poetry,
so your name fails to ring a bell.
“You, Reader”- I offer him.

Reluctantly he begins.
Pausing a few times, he bursts out laughing.
I nod and show him my poem-
“Dear Reader”.
This time, his eyes are wide-open.

Oh, yes, I know: The trouble with poetry.

But the trouble is you and us.
I dare to say,
I am You, Reader and Poet.
I too steal and break into others’ lines.

Unlike at your kitchen table,
a dragon lady lifts a cup of cinnamon tea,
lips slightly parted;
I, narrate on the bus—

Strangers come and go,
“You, Reader” is left behind.
_________________
---------------------

Anna Yin

《爱的灯塔-星子安娜双语诗选》
<Nightlights> <Seven Nights with the Chinese Zodiac> ...

http://annapoetry.com

[[星子安娜]]

if let me choose poems of Billy Collins or Li-Young Lee, guess whose I will?
Like · · Unfollow Post · Share
John Tiong Chunghoo, Gary Blankenship and Baron James Ashanti like this.

Bruce Meyer Collins is overrated. Half the time he's just talking to himself. Sometimes he has something interesting to say, but most of the time he is king of blah blah.
17 hours ago · Unlike · 2

Anna Yin I agree, Collins is like a maker of poetry... playing words... but the true natural poet is Li-Young Lee, the words into your heart and feeling...
16 hours ago · Edited · Like

Anna Yin Collins made poetry so popular in USA and promote poetry so well, I admire both of them...
16 hours ago · Like

Mel Sarnese I like Billy Collins...More my style poetry.
16 hours ago · Unlike · 1

Lynn Tait Yes, guilty as charged. I too enjoy Collins.
10 hours ago · Unlike · 1

Anna Yin I like the wisdom and humour in Collins. but Lee's will make me cry.
3 hours ago · Edited · Like


John B. Lee I tell my hockey pals, "Better a good play that fails than a bad play that succeeds." Only a limited number of people understand what I mean. A bad play that succeeds reinforces poor play, rewards mediocrity with the illusion that doing the same thing again will succeed. How is this relevant to Billy Collins? Many years ago my friend Don McKay warned me, after I wowed a crowd of his students at Western with a particularly exhilarating reading, entertaining the hell out of his students, "Beware the audience. It can ruin the work." I read a caveat in Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky's book, "The Sounds of Poetry: a brief guide," ..."the true measure of the quality of a poem is to be had in the absence of the personality of the poet." So, however much I love or admire the work of Billy Collins, and I do enjoy his best work, there is far too much pandering to the audience, entertaining as it may be, in his work. A shallowing of his writing occurred when he was Poet Laureate. The audience he acquired was rarely disturbed, and rarely deeply moved, profoundly changed by the experience of his poetry. He seemed seduced by the perfume of his own aura, the POET as entertainer, the stand-up comedian, the least valuable quality of the poem, the deep well lingering long enough to feel deeply, know in the soul what it means to be human. When the laughter dies, when the imagination examines itself and realizes the experience was novel without being truly challenging, and so, Collins satisfies, but does not disturb, agitate, confuse, and hook deep where poetry illuminates, transforms, and lingers in the limpid darkness where we must carry the light to see. I love his work, but it isn't of this order, especially after he became poet laureate. Or so I find. Beware the audience, it can ruin the work. all good things, John B. Lee
20 minutes ago · Unlike · 1

Anna Yin dear John B. Lee, thanks for your thoughts... I feel the same... I do think it is great to engage the audience, but need more to be left... I wrote several poems after reading his books...for me, reading Lee, I feel have touching a real human, yet with Collins, life is much empty...The Trouble with Poetry
—for Billy Collins

I tell the man next to me
how you engage the reader;
like others, I am hooked.

Apparently he rarely reads poetry,
so your name fails to ring a bell.
“You, Reader”- I offer him.

Reluctantly he begins.
Pausing a few times, he bursts out laughing.
I nod and show him my poem-
“Dear Reader”.
This time, his eyes are wide-open.

Oh, yes, I know: The trouble with poetry.

But the trouble is you and us.
I dare to say,
I am You, Reader and Poet.
I too steal and break into others’ lines.

Unlike at your kitchen table,
a dragon lady lifts a cup of cinnamon tea,
lips slightly parted;
I, narrate on the bus—

Strangers come and go,
“You, Reader” is left behind.
_________________
---------------------

Anna Yin

《爱的灯塔-星子安娜双语诗选》
<Nightlights> <Seven Nights with the Chinese Zodiac> ...

http://annapoetry.com

[anna]

John B. Lee I would say "connect" rather than "engage". Connect is passive, and powerfully contemplative, it means you've hooked deep. Engage suggests and active or responsive interaction. The former drops a light into the well, the latter offers the cup and shares a sip. I say, I write poetry to connect with the deep wells of the self, and then to offer that connection to the ideal reader, the recreator soul to soul, heart to heart, mind to mind, body to body, spirit surrounding interconnection that might occur when one shimmers inwardly at the glimpse of grace made available through the dictionary music of poetry. Here is a recent poem, I read it in translation of course. A thousand year old poem by Mei Yao Ch'en.
8 minutes ago · Like

John B. Lee In Broad Daylight I Dream of My Dead Wife
8 minutes ago · Like

John B. Lee Who's says that the dead do not think of us?
Whenever I travel, she goes with me.
She was uneasy when I was on a journey>
7 minutes ago · Like

John B. Lee She always wanted to accompany me.
When I dream, everything is as it used to be.
When I wake up, I am stabbed with sorrow.
The living are often parted and never meet again.
The dead are together as pure souls.
Mei Yao Ch'en translation by Kenneth Rexroth
_________________
---------------------

Anna Yin

《爱的灯塔-星子安娜双语诗选》
<Nightlights> <Seven Nights with the Chinese Zodiac> ...

http://annapoetry.com

[[星子安娜]]

John B. Lee I would say "connect" rather than "engage". Connect is passive, and powerfully contemplative, it means you've hooked deep. Engage suggests and active or responsive interaction. The former drops a light into the well, the latter offers the cup and shares a sip. I say, I write poetry to connect with the deep wells of the self, and then to offer that connection to the ideal reader, the recreator soul to soul, heart to heart, mind to mind, body to body, spirit surrounding interconnection that might occur when one shimmers inwardly at the glimpse of grace made available through the dictionary music of poetry. Here is a recent poem, I read it in translation of course. A thousand year old poem by Mei Yao Ch'en.
8 minutes ago · Like

John B. Lee In Broad Daylight I Dream of My Dead Wife
8 minutes ago · Like

John B. Lee Who's says that the dead do not think of us?
Whenever I travel, she goes with me.
She was uneasy when I was on a journey>
7 minutes ago · Like

John B. Lee She always wanted to accompany me.
When I dream, everything is as it used to be.
When I wake up, I am stabbed with sorrow.
The living are often parted and never meet again.
The dead are together as pure souls.
Mei Yao Ch'en translation by Kenneth Rexroth
_________________
---------------------

Anna Yin

《爱的灯塔-星子安娜双语诗选》
<Nightlights> <Seven Nights with the Chinese Zodiac> ...

http://annapoetry.com

[anna]

Indeed, the difference between Mei Yao Ch'en and Billy Collins is remarkable. Collins is high concept and generalizing, an idea of death and the dead, the dead are a collective generality as are the living, both doing something slightly magical, slightly surreal, but entirely in generality. Like the difference between the Valkaries of myth and the twa corbies of the poem of the same title, lamenting the untimely demise of one individual knight. A Dream of Night is far more powerful as a poem because the suffering is made all the more poignant by the particularity of loss. Collins poem satisfies the theme, but it does not hook deep. It is imaginative in a sort of stone skip of emotion one feels, the generalized melancholia of our existential predicament and the philosophical relationship between the living and the dead. But the living, the quick, the vital and breathing humanity are a large mass to get one's mind around. And all the dead for all ages, these are not so moving as the wife loss of A Dream of Night. all good things, John B.
_________________
---------------------

Anna Yin

《爱的灯塔-星子安娜双语诗选》
<Nightlights> <Seven Nights with the Chinese Zodiac> ...

http://annapoetry.com

[[星子安娜]]

Indeed, the difference between Mei Yao Ch'en and Billy Collins is remarkable. Collins is high concept and generalizing, an idea of death and the dead, the dead are a collective generality as are the living, both doing something slightly magical, slightly surreal, but entirely in generality. Like the difference between the Valkaries of myth and the twa corbies of the poem of the same title, lamenting the untimely demise of one individual knight. A Dream of Night is far more powerful as a poem because the suffering is made all the more poignant by the particularity of loss. Collins poem satisfies the theme, but it does not hook deep. It is imaginative in a sort of stone skip of emotion one feels, the generalized melancholia of our existential predicament and the philosophical relationship between the living and the dead. But the living, the quick, the vital and breathing humanity are a large mass to get one's mind around. And all the dead for all ages, these are not so moving as the wife loss of A Dream of Night. all good things, John B.
_________________
---------------------

Anna Yin

《爱的灯塔-星子安娜双语诗选》
<Nightlights> <Seven Nights with the Chinese Zodiac> ...

http://annapoetry.com