Aimless Love: New and Selected Poems, Billy Collins, 2013
A new collection of Collins’ work, much of which is familiar and much loved by me—Aimless Love, Tipping Point about Eric Dolphy’s 36 years, Litany (You are the bread and the knife….), The Lanyard, Brightly Colored Boats Upturned on the Banks of the Charles, Old Man Eating Alone in a Chinese Restaurant, Grave (What do you think of my new glasses..) as well as new poems which didn’t really do it for me. There were a few good ones, but nothing great. I liked If This Were a Job I’d be Fired (When you wake up with northing/but you are nonetheless drawn to your sunny chair/near the French doors, It may be necessary/to turn to some of the others to get you going.), Dining Alone (I would rather eat at the bar/but such behavior/ is regarded by professionals as a form of denial), and Biographical Notes in an Anthology of Haiku (Walking the dog/you meet/lots of dogs by Soshi), Heraclitus on Vacation (It is possible to stick your foot/into the same swimming pool twice,/dive or even cannonball/into the deep or shallow end/as many times as you like/depending on how much you had to drink.) Drinking Alone after Li Po (This is not after Li Po/the way the state is after me/for neglecting to pay all my taxes).