Billy Collins is an American poet, professor, and anthologist. Collins was born on March 22, 1941, in New York City. He is famous for his amusing poems that make the readers slip into a heartfelt observation on everyday life. His many awards include The Mark Twain prize for humor in poetry, and Goodreads choice awards for best poetry. Many find his poems filled with a sensation of warmth, and occasionally a surreal imagination. One of his poems that have this surreal imagination is called “The First Dream”. In this poem, Collins explores the first dream of the first person, and their struggle in order to understand it.
The poem opens up with the author who uses a first person point of view. The author wonders what the first person to dream
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is like. In the first line of stanza one, the author offers a description of his location; “The Wind is ghosting around the house tonight” (Collins). This style alerts the readers that the poem will be based on the author’s personal senses, and impressions. In stanza two, the author imagines a group of caveman's surrounding a large pit of fire however one of them is not part of the group conversation as he have experience a dream. The author continues in stanza three, as he imagines the male dreamer leaving his group of cavemen to think alone about his dream. Stanza four reveals the dream, which involves a beast. Continuing on in the last three stanzas of the poem, the author switches to a female dreamer. The author relates the experience of both dreamers concluding that both of them would isolate themselves from their cave family in order to understand what they have just experience, for they don’t understand why their mind mover to another place. There are a fair amount of poetic devices in this poem.
Structurally, this poem is a free verse poem having no rhyme, nor rhyme scheme. It has no poetic constraints because Collins chooses it to have a natural flow of thought when the readers read through it. The poem consists of a constant repetition of one stanza with four lines although the last stanza of the poem ends with two lines. These last two lines indicates that there is a possible volta in the poem. It reads: “You might have gone down as the first person/ to ever fall in love with the sadness of another” (Collins 25-26). In these two lines, Collins is specifying new ideas. Guadally it marks a tone of curiosity to the readers because the author’s intent is clearly not exploring about the“The first dream”, but is now exploring the beginning of emotions. The author establishes a tone of loneliness in the poem. This is clearly shown in lines 20-22: “moving off by herself to be alone near water,/ except that the curve of her young shoulders/ and the tilt of her downcast head” (Collins). Collins description of the female dreamer reaction of her first dream shows that she is not willingly to tell anyone about her dream in fear of being an outcast. Instead she chooses to seclude herself, and struggle to make sense of what she has experience. The author utilize imagery in this poem to appeal to the bodily senses of the reader. In line 13-16 he …show more content…
writes, how he had put his arms around the neck of a beast that the others could touch only after they had killed it with stones how he felt its breath on his bare neck. (Collins) The images depicting the beast with the male dreamer convey a sense of antagonization. It creates a visual scene that appeals to the reader senses by using the words “beast”, “bare neck” and “breath”. Additionally this stanza of the poem adds to the reader's imagination to visualize the character, and scene at the very moment. Certain people tend to have a tough time trying to explain their first experience of a situation such as a dream to people because of the way it sounds when it’s vocalize out loud without any support of evidence; this is the meaning in which Collins explains in this poem. Everyone have come in contact with their first dream, which maybe memorable, or frightening. can be intimidating. Lines 9 -12 states, Collins uses this poem to clarify that telling someone a dream especially when it’s the first time He might have gone off by himself to sit On a rock and look into the mist of a lake As he tried to tell himself what had happened, how he had gone somewhere without going, (Collins) These lines show the male dreamer wandering off to a nearby lake in order to meditate on his new dream.
He contemplate on how he manages to enter another realm of thoughts filled with action, and events. People often reject what the can not understand, which often makes the dreamer interpreting his dream decline into a feeling of rejection. They feel their dream is unintelliegent, for the other person does not acknowledge his point. Furthermore the word “first” is the takeaway keyword of the entire poem because the word illustrates that it's the first time of experiencing something new. Likewise the word “first” exemplifies into the poem by adding “dream” to it. It ties to the poem structure because both dreamers are undergoing to their “first
dream’’. The importance of the poem, “The First Dream” by Billy Collins tells of a male, and female first dream along their strive in order to understand their dream. The challenges they face is loneliness. Their characterization is as lonely figures due to the fact that they are experiencing their first dream, and finding ways to understand it. The overall effect of the poem is being the first to discover an idea can be a startling feeling, but struggling to understand it is beneficial. Collins intent of showing the poem’s meaning is clear, and it excites profound opinion from the readers.
Who is the speaker of the poem? It is not the author necessarily. What can you tell about the speaker from the poem?
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The long journey on planet earth known as life has it ups and downs, growing up as a young individual in today’s world is an obvious rollercoaster. The characters of Phoebe and Theo, are two young girls who endured completely different lives in the books The Hollow Tree, and Awake and Dreaming although they did encounter some similarities throughout their stories. The two children encountered similar family complications, utilised similar coping mechanisms to escape reality, and both became more assertive over their lifespans in the novels. These two novels offer young females readers a logical view on how tough life can get, and how the readers can overcome similar complications they have in their personal lives, while doing all this generating
in the third person for the majority of the poem and it is only really
The popular American Poet, Billy Collins, is playing a significant role in the evolution of poetry. His writing style evokes an array of emotions for the reader. Every stanza in his poetry passes the satirical standard that he generated for himself over his career. Collins swiftly captivates his readers through his diverse use of figurative language. More specifically, his use of vivid imagery paired with humorous personification and extended metaphors create his unique style of satirical poetry. This developed form of writing appeals to a large crowd of people because the generally accessible topics that he discusses are fairly easy to resonate for the common man. However, his poetry offers an interesting perspective on what otherwise would be simplistic ideas. The main themes and concepts that are being presented in each of his writings are revered and coveted by the general population. An appealing aspect of his writing is his ability to directly convey the main idea within the poem. As a result, the reader can understand the meaning of his work with ease. The typical beginning of his work gives the reader a slight taste of what is to come. Billy Collins’ unique writing style and various trademarks directly influenced by his ability to propagate an array of emotions for the reader, his humorous tone, and the accessibility of the topics he describes within his poetry.
Billy Collins is one of the most credited poets of this century and last. He is a man of many talents, most recognized though by his provocative and riveting poetry. As John McEnroe was to the sport of tennis, Billy Collins has done the same for the world of poetry. Collin’s rejected the old ways of poetry, created his own form, broke all the rules, and still retains the love and respect of the poet community. Collins has received the title of Poet Laureate of the United States twice and also has received countless awards and acknowledgements. He has achieved this through a style of poetry that is not over-interpreted and hard to understand to most, but that of the complete opposite, his poetry is hospitable and playful.
For this assignment, I have decided to write about a famous poem of Billy Collins which is titled as ‘Introduction to Poetry’ written in 1996.
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describing is simply a dream in what you want to achieve in life. And in the poem the dreams of the
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