Sailing Alone Around the Room

June 18, 2001
This collection hit the front page of the New York Times
its first time out of the blocks in 1999, as the University of Pittsburgh Press, Collins's longtime publisher, denied Random the rights to the poems as the poet tried to jump ship. The two houses and Collins's agent, Chris Calhoun (Dan Menaker is Collins's editor at Random), later worked out a deal that gave Pitt a few more months to ride Picnic, Lightning
(1998) and Collins's other books without this culling treading on its sales. As it now appears, the book includes 23 poems from Picnic, more than from any of Collins's previous three books included here. (Work from the early Video Poems
and Pokerface
is absent.) Collins's poems are generally conveyed by a speaker whose genial, highly literate analogue of earnestness perfectly produces inchoate quotidian restlessness matched by fear-based appreciation of the mundane. A typical Collins poem begins with "How agreeable it is not to be touring Italy this summer," "The way the dog trots out the front door" or the observation that "It is possible to be struck by a meteor/ or a single-engine plane/ while reading in a chair at home"—and continues by juxtaposing, say, close descriptions of "the instant hand of Death" and "the rasp of the steel edge/ against a round stone,/ the small plants singing/ with lifted faces." It's a formula that has worked well for Collins, and he does not abandon it in the 20 new poems here. (On-sale date: Sept. 11)Forecast:A reading on NPR's
A Prairie Home Companion was the beginning of serious sales for
Picnic, Lightning (40,000 copies and counting), while
The Art of Drowning has sold 26,000 since 1995, and
Questions About Angels clocks in at 21,000 since 1991. Collins's reading tours for this book should help reach even more readers, and some browsers may remember the
Times story.

September 1, 2001
This new volume from the newly appointed poet laureate of the United States has survived the publishing rights war between Random House and the University of Pittsburgh Press. The wait has been well worth it. The surface structure of these poems appears simplistic, but subtle changes in tone or gesture move the reader from the mundane to the sublime. In an attempt to sleep, the speaker in "Insomnia" moves from counting sheep to envisioning Noah's arc to picturing "all the fish in creation/ leaping a fence in a field of water, / one colorful species after another." Collins will tackle any topic: his subject matter varies from snow days to Aristotle to forgetfulness. The results are accessible but not trite, comical but not laughable, and well crafted but not overly flamboyant. Collins relies heavily on imagery, which becomes the cornerstone of the entire volume, and his range of diction brings such a polish to these poems that the reader is left feeling that this book "once opened, can never be closed." This volume belongs in everyone's library; highly recommended. Tim Gavin, Episcopa Acad., Merion, PA

Copyright 2001 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2001
Collins, that rarest of creatures, a truly popular living poet, is currently poet laureate, an appointment well celebrated with this fertile gathering of nearly 100 poems--20 newly minted, the others selected from four earlier volumes, including " Picnic, Lightning" (1998). On every delectable page, Collins performs nimble feats of the imagination and gives voice to an emotion we foolishly trivialize and condemn: pure pleasure. Nurturing a childlike love and talent for make-believe, he enters the landscape of a Hudson River painting; offers funny takes on history; writes lovingly of dogs, music, cups of tea, and books; and sees everything as a living entity, from a piano to a calendar pinup to the dawn. But what appears to be whimsy is, in fact, a graceful and ongoing inquiry into the nature of being. Mischievous and deeply attentive, inventive and grateful, Collins moves stealthily toward the essentials, quietly celebrating the simple and reflective life and gently reminding readers to respect and treasure our species' tenuous place on the great thrumming web of life.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2001, American Library Association.)