I just realized that today’s the birthday of one of my favorite living poets, former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins. I’ve often called him the gateway drug for poetry, because his work manages to be just as accessible as it is profound, convincing even the skeptical (like I was) that modern poetry could be amazing. His poems do so well what I think C.S. Lewis’s books do with theology: they take big, beautiful ideas and tether them to earth so the rest of us down here actually stand a chance to grasp them and thereby broaden our minds and hearts. His poems are kind, and, I would argue, even loving to the reader, deftly mixing humor and human nature and transcendent themes in a way that I’ve never encountered before. He’s a master.
If you want a primer, here’s a video of Billy reading some of his great ones.
One of the high points in my career was getting to do a writer’s round with him one night at an event in Nashville, and I was talked into the very risky prospect of not merely reading one of my meager poems in front of him, but one I wrote about him after spotting him at the airport on a layover. After my reading (which embarrassed him somewhat) he very graciously leaned over to me and said, “I like that you wrote about my buttocks.”
True story.
I thought I’d share my poem here. It was published in The Molehill, Volume I. Cheers, Billy. I’m glad you do what you do.
BILLY COLLINS AT THE AIRPORT
By Andrew Peterson
You looked as much like Mr. Collins
As you ought to have: bright eyed,
With a minuscule smile, as if you knew
Something the rest of us could only know
If you put it down in a ten-line poem.
You were putting on your suit coat
After having been undressed
And x-rayed by the security offcers,
Who I’m sure had no idea what
You were really smuggling,
Unaware that they were patting down
The thighs and buttocks of a poet laureate
Searching all the wrong sensitive areas
With their bright blue latex gloves.
They couldn’t imagine that they were,
In that moment, merely metaphors
For some wry, lovely, dangerous thought–
Something about windows, or fruit,
Or maybe something even worse.
Andrew Peterson is a singer-songwriter and author. Andrew has released more than ten records over the past twenty years, earning him a reputation for songs that connect with his listeners in ways equally powerful, poetic, and intimate. As an author, Andrew’s books include the four volumes of the award-winning Wingfeather Saga, released in collectible hardcover editions through Random House in 2020, and his creative memoir, Adorning the Dark, released in 2019 through B&H Publishing.
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Josh Duncan
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