Close Relationship to the Reader

Collins' volume is divided into four sections, and I think that each section gets progressively more indepth. The title--"The Art of Drowning"--suggests sinking deeper and deeper into a state of introspection, into the subconscious, and the overall structure of his volume follows this. The speaker in the poems becomes less of a casual observer of life's events and more of an active analizer. I feel that Collins, as the volume progresses, invites the reader deeper into his mental psyche as well. How does he do this? In the beginning of the volume, Collins stuck with describing concrete things in lay terms. As the volume draws to a close, Collins still uses concrete imagery, but instead focuses on describing his desires and feelings with these images. For example, look at "Medium," where Collins is describing his desires for poetry writing.

Medium

The way I like to lay it down sometimes
there is too much traction on paper.
The ink soaks into the cloth of the page.
The words adhere like burrs to a woolen cuff.

I would rather behave on a surface of oil,
a young Renaissance painter in a frock
and a crushed, deep blue velvet hat,
moving the oleaginous colors into the face
of the Virgin or lightening the gray
of the sky behind the oval of her head.

I want to write with the least control,
one finger on the steering wheel,
to write like a watercolorist
whose brush persuades the liquids
to stay above the pull and run of gravity.

I want to hold the pen lightly
as you would touch the stilted, wooden
pointer on a ouija board,
letting it glide over the letters
until it comes to rest as a stone
thrown across a frozen mountain lake
will stop somewhere in the darkness
when the long insistence of friction
has its way and will not longer be overcome.

I would love to write on water
like the final words of Keats
so a current would carry the sentences away
and the sligthest breeze would ruffle
the glassy curves of their meaning.

I want to write on air
as in the rapid language of signs
or in the lighting of a cigarette,
both hands cupped near the mouth,
then one waving out the flame
and the long, silent exhalation of smoke,
the gate of the body swinging open.

Most of all,
I want to write on your skin
with the tip of my finger,
printing one capital letter at a time
on the sloping vellum of your back.
I want you to guess the message
being written on your flesh
as children do in summer at the beach,
to feel the shape of every letter
being traced upon your body--oh, ideal reader--
to read with your eyes shut tight,
kneeling in the sand, facing the open sea.

First of all, there are some great concrete images in this poem. As is typical, Collins uses specific images to describe his subject, poetry: "The words adhere like burrs to a woolen cuff" and "to write like a watercolorist whose brush persuades the liquids to stay above the pull and run of gravity." It's clear that he is very passionate about poetry from the vividness of the images. Another poetic technique that Collins uses is repetition of the first stanza lines. The beginning of each stanza is similar: I would..., I want..., I want..., I would..., I want.... Only the first and last stanza do not begin with either phrase. The second line of the last stanza is "I want" but Collins emphasizes it with "most of all" for the first line. The stanzas are of varying length, which lends to the "flow of consciousness" feel that Collins creates with the personal language. At the beginning of the poem, Collins is just listing things that he wants for himself. But by the last stanza, the poem is a direct address, where Collins is asking things of the reader. While he does not address the reader outright in most of the poems, this does not come as as a suprise, since it feels that Collins is attempting to convince a reluctant reader that poetry is worthwhile.