Poetry Attack

Poem One



Child Development

As sure as prehistoric fish grew leg

and sauntered off the beaches into forests


working up some irregular verbs for their


first conversation, so three-year-old children


enter the phase of name-calling.





Every day a new one arrives and is added


to the repertoire. You Dumb Goopyhead,


You Big Sewerface, You Poop-on-the-Floor


(a kind of Navaho ring to that one)


they yell from knee level, their little mugs


flushed with challenge.


Nothing Samuel Johnson would bother tossing out


in a pub, but then the toddlers are not trying


to devastate some fatuous Enlightenment hack.





They are just tormenting their fellow squirts


or going after the attention of the giants


way up there with their cocktails and bad breath


talking baritone nonsense to other giants,


waiting to call them names after thanking


them for the lovely party and hearing the door close.





The mature save their hothead invective


for things: an errant hammer, tire chains,


or receding trains missed by seconds,


though they know in their adult hearts,


even as they threaten to banish Timmy to bed


for his appalling behavior,


that their bosses are Big Fatty Stupids,


their wives are Dopey Dopeheads


and that they themselves are Mr. Sillypants.





Billy Collins








Personal Response:





I really liked this poem by Billy Collins because I can remember when I was a little kid and made up names for other kids or adults. Collins writing about name calling of little children helps many people to relate to the poem because everyone was a little kid once and remembers when they used to name call. I also liked that at the end of the poem, Collins shows that even adults feel the same way about name calling sometimes as the little kids do. Collins refers to a boss as "Big Fatty Stupid" to show that even as we grow up we all still have some childish ways about us.











Poem Two






Flames

Smokey the Bear heads


into the autumn woods


with a red can of gasoline


and a box of wooden matches.






His ranger's hat is cocked


at a disturbing angle.






His brown fur gleams


under the high sun


as his paws, the size


of catcher's mitts,


crackle into the distance.






He is sick of dispensing


warnings to the careless,


the half-wit camper,


the dumbbell hiker.






He is going to show them


how a professional does it.





Billy Collins






Personal Reflection:

I chose this picture of Smokey the Bear because in Collins' poem he makes a funny reference to Smokey being fed up with telling people to stop forest fires, so he sets a fire to one himself. If you had not read this poem and looked at the picture, it might seem like just the normal Smokey the Bear. After I read the poem and looked at this picture I found Collins' poem very humorus that he used a kid's cartoon character in one of his poems as a forest-fire-starting bear.




Poem Three

Walking Across the Atlantic

I wait for the holiday crowd to clear the beach
before stepping onto the first wave.

Soon I am walking across the Atlantic
thinking about Spain,checking for whales, waterspouts.
I feel the water holding up my shifting weight.
Tonight I will sleep on its rocking surface.

But for now I try to imagine what
this must look like to the fish below,
the bottoms of my feet appearing, disappearing.

Billy Collins


Personal Reflection:

This poem by Billy Collins is much different style wise than the first two. The first two had more humor behind his tone and style while this one is a deeper, dream like poem. He desribes himself walking across the Atlantic Ocean and describes details such as, " I feel the water holding up my shifting weight." This is a powerful poem by Collins, that describes a situation in which he feels very strong and as if he can do anything. His tone is very confident, adventurous, and daring.