Nation’s poet at MSSM Laureate Billy Collins encourages students’ muse

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LIMESTONE – High school, according to the country’s newest poet laureate, is where poetry goes to die.

But Billy Collins has some ideas on how to change that, starting with using his position as the nation’s literary voice.

“I want to get poetry off the blackboards and into students’ lives,” he said.

The laureate was at the Maine School of Science and Mathematics on Thursday as part of the school’s visiting authors program.

Collins spent the afternoon with students in a question-and-answer session before reading from his works that evening.

“So many poets write oblivious of the readers,” he said. “Readers feel like they are being pushed underwater by somebody when they read or hear a poem that is hard for them to enter.”

Rather, Collins encourages readers to follow his words in his poem “Introduction to Poetry,” to “water-ski across the surface of a poem, waving at the author’s name on the shore.”

Collins told the students he never set out to become a poet and said he still has a hard time describing himself as such.

“When you tell people you are a poet, you get back these nods of dull respect,” he said.

Now, with the title “laureate,” Collins said, he does get a bit more respect and people are quicker to take his calls.

“But I am trying to ignore the paralyzing effect that now I have to write laureate-level poetry and represent the United States in every line.”

The muse to write, Collins said, can strike anytime, anywhere, but for him it seems to strike most often while he is behind the wheel.

“I often write in the car,” he said. “In New York they can stop you for using a cell phone while driving, but not for writing.”

Aspiring poets were advised to forget themselves while writing and allow the poem to speak for itself.

“The poem can take on a consciousness of its own,” Collins said. “You need to listen to it and it will take you to places not on the map.”

Writing poetry has something to do with madness and ignoring what is logical and rational, Collins said, noting the irony of the statement at a school devoted to math and science.

“But it is only when you turn off the logic and rational thought that you can hear your imagination,” he said. “Poetry is a form of imaginative travel writing and when it takes me to a place that I wasn’t aware of at the start of the poem, that – to me – is fascinating.”

Imagination and spontaneity are the keys in poetry, Collins said.

The laureate said he writes a poem in about 25 minutes and confessed to a healthy disdain of rewrites.

“If first you don’t succeed, hide all evidence you ever tried,” he said. “I like my work to maintain the idea of spontaneity – obsessive rewrites can wear away the spirit of the poem.”

People often have narrow views of poetry, viewing it through what Collins termed the “poetry goggles,” and limiting their experiences with the written word.

“Many people suffer from the idea that all poems are about nature or traumatic emotions,” he said. “It’s just a matter of taking off those goggles and seeing there is poetry in everything.”

Collins said he went through his own “brooding romantic genius poet phase” for a while; a time he said he was “too sensitive to write anything.”

Now, no topic is safe from his pen and his poems cover topics ranging from the Victoria’s Secret catalog to shoveling snow with Buddha.

Collins hopes to use his new position to encourage educators to get poetry into students’ lives just to enjoy the words, not overanalyze or study them.

He calls his plan “Poetry 180,” in reference to a physical turn and the number of days in a typical school year.

“I would like to select 180 pieces of poetry I feel students your age can get and encourage them to read one each day,” Collins said. “I will ask the teachers not to discuss the poem, just read it and hear it and make the poem part of daily life.”

Collins is the nation’s 41st poet laureate and is still getting used to the idea.

“I never thought of myself as having a role in shaping culture,” he said. “I just wanted to write good poetry.”