Structure & Personification
Of all of the poetry volumes that I have read so far, Collins is easily the most accessible. The subjects that Collins addresses are typical of middle-class America, and I think that is what makes him a bestseller to the general public. Collins doesn’t really attempt anything avant guarde—he instead chooses to take ordinary, everyday occurrences and portray them in a creative manner that is not overly abstract or confusing.
A lot of people have memories of taking piano lessons either as a child or later in life, and Collins describes these experiences in "Piano Lessons."
Piano Lessons
1.
My teacher lies on the floor with a bad back
Off to the side of the piano.
I sit up straight on the stool.
He begins by telling me that every key
Is like a different room
And I am a blind man who must learn
To walk through all twelve of them
Without hitting the furniture.
I feel myself reach for the first doorknob.
2.
He tells me that every scale has a shape
And I have to learn how to hold
Each one in my hands.
At home I practice with my eyes closed.
C is an open book.
D is a vase with two handles.
G flat is a black boot.
E has the legs of a bird.
3.
He says the scale is the mother of the chords.
I can see her pacing the bedroom floor
Waiting for her children to come home.
They are our at nightclubs shading and lighting
All the songs while couples dance slowly
Or stare at one another across tables.
This is the way it must be. After all,
Just the right chord can bring you to tears
But no one listens to the scales,
No one listens to their mother.
4.
I am doing my scales,
The familiar anthems of childhood.
My fingers climb the ladder of notes
And come back down without turning around.
Anyone walking under this open window
Would picture a girl of about ten
Sitting at the keyboard with perfect posture,
No me slumped over in my bathrobe, disheveled,
Like a white Horace Silver.
5.
I am learning to play
“It Might As Well Be Spring”
But my left hand would rather be jingling
The change in the darkness of my pocket
Or taking a nap on an armrest.
I have to drag him into the music
Like a difficult and neglected child.
This is the revenge of one who never gets
To hold the pen or wave good-bye,
And now, who never gets to play the melody.
6.
Even when I am not playing, I think about the piano.
It is the largest, heaviest,
And most beautiful object in this house.
I pause in the doorway just to take it all in.
And late at night I picture it downstairs,
This hallucination standing on three legs,
This curious beast with its enormous moonlit smile.
In “Piano Lessons,” Collins divides the poem into the six sections, which are clearly labeled. The stanzas are of varying length, which lends to the sense that the speaker is casually remembering the piano lessons. The poem is a narrative poem…let’s consider what the first few stanzas would be like as prose:
My teacher lies on the floor with a bad back off to the side of the piano. I sit up straight on the stool. He begins by telling me that every key is like a different room and I am a blind man who must learn to walk through all twelve of them without hitting the furniture. I feel myself reach for the first doorknob.
He tells me that every scale has a shape and I have to learn how to hold each one in my hands. At home I practice with my eyes closed. C is an open book. D is a vase with two handles. G is flat black boot. E has the legs of a bird.
Not really all that different, is it? In this poem—and in many others—Collins plays the role of a storyteller, with imagery to liven up the story. The heavy use of enjambment creates the meandering tone of a memory. One of Collins’ strengths is his ability to provide the reader with structure, yet still have a spur-of-the-moment, unpremeditated feel.
“Piano Lessons” contains some of Collins’ most original, insightful figurative language. First, he compares the piano keys to different rooms and himself to “a blind man who must learn to walk through them” without hitting the furniture. The reader can easily draw a parallel—playing the wrong notes on a piano creates the same racket (and an observer’s cringing) as a blind man bumping into a room’s furniture.
Next, Collins describes the scale as the mother of chords. Here, he uses extended personification—not only is the “scale” pacing the floor while her children (chords) are out…but then Collins likens his personification to something that the reader can connect with: just like no one listens to the scales, no one listens to their mother. Suddenly, the reader has empathy for the distraught scale.
In the fifth stanza, Collins creates an interesting image when he separates the left hand from the body in general. Usually, we don’t describe paired physical features (eyes, feet, hands, etc.) separately. Also, we seldom give “orders” to a body part like Collins does:
“I have to drag him into the music
Like a difficult and neglected child.
This is the revenge of the one who never gets
To hold the pen or wave good-bye,
And now, who never gets to play the melody.”
By the end of this stanza, Collins has actually created a sympathetic tone—the reader feels bad for the left hand that does not get to play the melody! Collins’ personification is so effective that the “left hand” has actually turned into something with emotion and feelings.
In the final stanza, there is another example of personification. Collins describes the piano as a “curious beast with its enormous moonlit smile.” Essentially, throughout the poem Collins has personified different elements of the piano—the keys, the scales, the chords, even the hand that plays these chords—and the result is a clever poem with personification carefully woven in.
A lot of people have memories of taking piano lessons either as a child or later in life, and Collins describes these experiences in "Piano Lessons."
Piano Lessons
1.
My teacher lies on the floor with a bad back
Off to the side of the piano.
I sit up straight on the stool.
He begins by telling me that every key
Is like a different room
And I am a blind man who must learn
To walk through all twelve of them
Without hitting the furniture.
I feel myself reach for the first doorknob.
2.
He tells me that every scale has a shape
And I have to learn how to hold
Each one in my hands.
At home I practice with my eyes closed.
C is an open book.
D is a vase with two handles.
G flat is a black boot.
E has the legs of a bird.
3.
He says the scale is the mother of the chords.
I can see her pacing the bedroom floor
Waiting for her children to come home.
They are our at nightclubs shading and lighting
All the songs while couples dance slowly
Or stare at one another across tables.
This is the way it must be. After all,
Just the right chord can bring you to tears
But no one listens to the scales,
No one listens to their mother.
4.
I am doing my scales,
The familiar anthems of childhood.
My fingers climb the ladder of notes
And come back down without turning around.
Anyone walking under this open window
Would picture a girl of about ten
Sitting at the keyboard with perfect posture,
No me slumped over in my bathrobe, disheveled,
Like a white Horace Silver.
5.
I am learning to play
“It Might As Well Be Spring”
But my left hand would rather be jingling
The change in the darkness of my pocket
Or taking a nap on an armrest.
I have to drag him into the music
Like a difficult and neglected child.
This is the revenge of one who never gets
To hold the pen or wave good-bye,
And now, who never gets to play the melody.
6.
Even when I am not playing, I think about the piano.
It is the largest, heaviest,
And most beautiful object in this house.
I pause in the doorway just to take it all in.
And late at night I picture it downstairs,
This hallucination standing on three legs,
This curious beast with its enormous moonlit smile.
In “Piano Lessons,” Collins divides the poem into the six sections, which are clearly labeled. The stanzas are of varying length, which lends to the sense that the speaker is casually remembering the piano lessons. The poem is a narrative poem…let’s consider what the first few stanzas would be like as prose:
My teacher lies on the floor with a bad back off to the side of the piano. I sit up straight on the stool. He begins by telling me that every key is like a different room and I am a blind man who must learn to walk through all twelve of them without hitting the furniture. I feel myself reach for the first doorknob.
He tells me that every scale has a shape and I have to learn how to hold each one in my hands. At home I practice with my eyes closed. C is an open book. D is a vase with two handles. G is flat black boot. E has the legs of a bird.
Not really all that different, is it? In this poem—and in many others—Collins plays the role of a storyteller, with imagery to liven up the story. The heavy use of enjambment creates the meandering tone of a memory. One of Collins’ strengths is his ability to provide the reader with structure, yet still have a spur-of-the-moment, unpremeditated feel.
“Piano Lessons” contains some of Collins’ most original, insightful figurative language. First, he compares the piano keys to different rooms and himself to “a blind man who must learn to walk through them” without hitting the furniture. The reader can easily draw a parallel—playing the wrong notes on a piano creates the same racket (and an observer’s cringing) as a blind man bumping into a room’s furniture.
Next, Collins describes the scale as the mother of chords. Here, he uses extended personification—not only is the “scale” pacing the floor while her children (chords) are out…but then Collins likens his personification to something that the reader can connect with: just like no one listens to the scales, no one listens to their mother. Suddenly, the reader has empathy for the distraught scale.
In the fifth stanza, Collins creates an interesting image when he separates the left hand from the body in general. Usually, we don’t describe paired physical features (eyes, feet, hands, etc.) separately. Also, we seldom give “orders” to a body part like Collins does:
“I have to drag him into the music
Like a difficult and neglected child.
This is the revenge of the one who never gets
To hold the pen or wave good-bye,
And now, who never gets to play the melody.”
By the end of this stanza, Collins has actually created a sympathetic tone—the reader feels bad for the left hand that does not get to play the melody! Collins’ personification is so effective that the “left hand” has actually turned into something with emotion and feelings.
In the final stanza, there is another example of personification. Collins describes the piano as a “curious beast with its enormous moonlit smile.” Essentially, throughout the poem Collins has personified different elements of the piano—the keys, the scales, the chords, even the hand that plays these chords—and the result is a clever poem with personification carefully woven in.
posted by Lauren at 1:49 PM
2 Comments:
So do you think that the fact that Billy Collins is transparent and mainstream-appealing weakens his work? You seemed pretty down on him when you commented in my blog about him. Even though sometimes I do feel like I can read some of Collins' work once and grasp everything there is to grasp, so many of his other works have threads of hidden meaning below the surface of the story he tells you initially. And I wish I could think of a specific example right now, but I don't have the book in front of me. I'll find one later.
I think that Collins' poetry is sometimes too obvious when there could be more layers of thought. Not all of his poetry is like this, of course, but the insightfulness is hit-and-miss. At times, I felt that Collins wrote poems with too much emphasis on the first-person perspective.
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