Poem Written in the Manner of Billy Collins
POEM WRITTEN IN THE MANNER OF BILLY COLLINS
First I take out the reference to global warming,
and the extinction of the blue-backed frog,
and in addition I delete any sappy, victim-like
particulars about my childhood.
I replace the checkpoint in Syria,
and the car speeding toward it
with a cup of coffee made from fine-ground Abyssinian beans
and a string quartet on the radio, playing,
I don’t know, something by Chopin.
With a small bottle of White-Out
and the accompanying exquisite little brush,
I erase the part about the gun
used by the sergeant from Afghanistan
to blow off his commander’s head.
I paint out the fashion model
with the fantastic cheekbones
who starved herself to death,
and the billionaire who gave
every player on his football team a Cadillac
until finally there is only a clean white page, like a living room floor
where a child is on his hands and knees,
feeding a piece of lettuce to a guinea pig,
petting it softly with one finger,
thinking hard and deciding
to change its name from Joe, to Josephine.
— Tony Hoagland
Tony Hoagland, whose collections of poems include Donkey Gospel and What Narcissism Means to Me, studied with Steve Orlen and Jon Anderson at the University of Arizona in the 80s, and spent a considerable number of hours without clothes on in Sabino and Reddington Canyons.
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Zócalo Magazine invites poets with Tucson connections to submit up
to three original, previously unpublished (including online) poems, any
style, 40 line limit per poem. Simultaneous submissions OK if you notify
us ASAP of acceptance elsewhere. Please include contact information on
each page of your manuscript. All manuscripts must be typed and accompanied
by a self-addressed, stamped envelope (SASE). Mss. won’t be returned.
Payment is one year’s subscription to Zócalo, which acquires first North American
rights on publication; author may re-publish with acknowledgment to Zócalo.
The poetry co-editors are Jefferson Carter and Michael Gessner.
Address submissions to Zócalo, Poetry, PO Box 1171, Tucson, AZ, 85702.
Category: Poetry
