Good morning, everyone: Soon you’ll be sending children or grandchildren off to school, and some of you will be off to school yourselves, as teachers or students — and in some cases, as it was for me, both.
Those of us who love poetry are always ready to read and learn more about it. I know that’s why, among all the collections on my shelves are books about fundamentals. This morning I’d like to tell you about some of those I have recently found most valuable.
First is a recent little book that I will never part with: Musical Tables by former Poet Laureate of the United States, Billy Collins (Random House, 2022). As critic Alice Fulton has said, he “puts the fun back in profundity.” This book of short, witty poems will bear — in fact, invite — repeated re-readings. His own love of poetry, he tells us, might have begun with nursery rhymes; I know that mine did.
Which is why, whether you have young children at home or not, I invite you to go back to the enduring classics of your childhood: Mother Goose, A Child’s Garden of Verses, those fairy tales with crayon-colored names, e.g., The Yellow Fairy Book, The Red Fairy Book — and a copy of Bible Stories for Children — if you can find them. There is also a wonderful, small pocket-sized copy of Emily Dickinson (Modern Library, 2004), with an introduction by Collins himself. It’s in my handbag now, and I’ve read and re-read it in many a doctor’s or dentist’s waiting-room. I’m now rushing to put it away, for I never want to be without it — nor, I hope, will you. Continue reading Poetry Monday: September 4, 2023
