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“No Time” by Billy Collins is a short but meaningful poem that mainly focuses on looking back on the past and carrying it with you. On the other hand, “Ain’t Wastin Time No More” by the Allman Brothers Band focuses on not focusing on the past and using your time that flies by so fast on being present. Although these pieces of art might seem polar opposite, they have more in common than most readers/listeners would originally think. 

In lines 1-3 of Billy Collins’ poem the speaker states, “In a rush this weekday morning, I tap the horn as I speed past the cemetery where my parents are buried” (lines 1-3) in order to give context on his following thoughts. First by showing the speaker being in a rush and giving a honk, the speaker makes it clear to the reader that it is hard not to think of his parents. Even in a rush on a weekday, most likely late for work, his parents still come to his mind. This shows the reflective nature of the speaker. He still remembers to give his parents a honk to let them know he still thinks about them. The second stanza shows the speaker personifying his deceased parents, “I think of him rising up to give me that look of knowing disapproval,” (lines 5-7). The way he personifies his father to show his  disappointment is a crucial aspect of the poem that shows the speaker’s way of thinking. His father has passed, so intentionally bringing back someone from the past to critique his present shows his tendencies to at first let the past rule over him. The whole poem is about carrying the past with you after all. But his personification of his mom, “while my mother calmly tells him to lie back down,” (line 8) is a reassuring one to dismiss how the speaker tends to bring the past into his life too much. By shushing the father (past judgemental thoughts) she serves as encouragement to focus more on the present and to not let the past rule the present.

“Ain’t Wastin Time No More” starts out with, “Last Sunday morning the sunshine felt like rain,” which references how the writer of the song (Greg Allman) feels after the passing of his brother and fellow band member Duane. He is understandably upset and can’t find happiness on a sunny day. The end of the verse, “I still had two strong legs and even wings to fly,” shows his change in tone that is carried throughout the rest of the song. After the passing of someone so crucial in his life on both a personal and professional level, he decides there is no use in constantly thinking about the past and time is better spent enjoying the present, which is constantly slipping away from us. After this revelation, he encourages others to share his way of thinking, “Miss Sally, why are you crying? … Go on downtown, baby, find someone to love,” this further emphasizes the speaker’s live in the moment attitude. His motivation (beyond his brother’s passing) is shown in his use of similes, “time goes by like hurricanes and faster things … time goes by like pouring rain and much faster things,” after his brothers passing, he realizes how fast time really flies by and that people need to make the most of their limited time and not spend it on negative thoughts. 

Although The Allman Brothers Band recommends not dwelling on the past a little differently, “Look inside yourself and if you don’t see what you want … leave your mind alone and just get high,”  than the speaker in “No Time”, they both capture similar messages with closer analysis.

Lyrics – Genius.com “Ain’t Wastin Time No More”

Poem – https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/41060/no-time

“The Best Cigarette” by Billy Collins is the easiest poem to understand out of the three. The first out of four stanzas immediately shows the reader that Collins has quit cigarettes many years ago, “There are many that I miss”, but that he still looks back fondly on his experiences smoking. The second stanza shows a pattern that has cigarettes associated with good memories, “after sex,” “at the end of a long dinner,” and “on a white beach”, are all examples that he provides where cigarettes made the moment better. The relationship between cigarettes and good memories make it easy for me to tell that they elevated those experiences and Collins enjoyed them. The third and fourth stanzas also relate cigarettes to good memories, but these instead are more productive instead of leisurely ones. “I would have a little something going in the typewriter,” “its dry rush coating the dark taste of coffee,” and “little puffs of smoke, indicators of progress,” showing how the cigarette added to the calming and productive atmosphere makes it easy to understand how much he likes them. This was the easiest poem to understand because it is pretty self explanatory with showing fond memories with cigarettes and how they added to the experience. Billy Collins focuses on the human experience, nostalgia, and the joys of everyday life in many poems which aided in my understanding of this one.

“Aristotle” by Billy Collins is the hardest to understand out of the three. I do understand that there are three long stanzas that are clearly announced in the first line of each as the beginning, middle, and end. Almost every line of every stanza is very clear to declare what part of the story it is, “you have not yet learned to crawl,” “halfway up the mountain,” and “what everything comes down to” are just some examples of how clear it constantly reminds you of where you are in the story. Despite how clear it is, it feels like I am just not getting the whole picture. The poem has 3 very long stanzas, which does make it harder to draw similarities between them. It is somewhat frustrating because I can get a decent understanding about what the poem is getting at (the structure of stories in general), but I know it is saying more than what I can understand. Collins’ background as a professor in creative writing helps me understand his appreciation of the structure of stories which this poem is about.

“Afternoon with Irish Cows” by Billy Collins was in between being easy and hard to understand. The poem starts with his understanding of cows being simple, unintelligent animals, “how patient and dumbfounded they appear in the long quiet of the afternoon.” His simple view of the cows starts to change when he hears one of them scream and realizes that she is not in pain but just screaming to announce herself. “She was only announcing the large, unadulterated cowness of herself,” he realizes that she is her own species. He recognizes that as a human he should not understand her scream. The cow is a cow communicating with other cows in their own expressions that are not to be understood by humans. Although I first thought that his view of cows had switched from simple minded to intelligent creatures, it did not. He actually recognizes that cows are not more complex or simple than humans, just different. They have their own things going on that we are not meant to understand. Collins’ Irish background suggests that the speaker of the poem is probably someone in his family, which aided my understanding of the poem as a whole.

Word count: 613

Sources: 

The excitement of a snow day as a young child was absolutely unbeaten. Billy Collins’ “Snow Day” shows the excitement of the young children that everyone can relate to, while also showing the peacefulness adults feel with the occasion. 

What immediately stuck out to me was the lines capturing how the snow day makes the town feel as a whole. Collins says, “Today we woke up to a revolution of snow, its white flag waving over everything,” (lines 1-2), and again, “the world fallen under this falling,” (line 10). These quotes both represent the calm feeling of the town shutting down for the day. The “white flag waving over everything” represents the surrender of everything in the town to the snow. The feeling of no work, school, or any public services gives a feeling of tranquility, like the world has stopped for a day. It is important for Collins to set the tone early in the poem, and he does so very well. You can feel the serene environment of the town after the first stanza, and it only continues to build.

Although the first two stanzas were very easy for me to understand, the third still confuses me. Collins says, “In a while, I will put on some boots and step out like someone walking in water, and the dog will porpoise through the drifts,” (lines 11-13). I think he is trying to make a comparison to the ocean but I do not understand why or what purpose it serves. I also do not understand what it means to “porpoise through the drifts”. He does not follow up with any more lines connected to water after this stanza. I also feel like the connections to water do not fit the mood the rest of the poem gives.

I feel I have a better understanding of the final 2 stanzas after a while of looking over them. The lines that gave me trouble at first were, “all but a few girls whispering by the fence” (line 35) and “what riot is afoot, which small queen is about to be brought down,” (lines 39-40). At first I thought that bringing up the girls had a deeper meaning. After looking at it more, I believe the author is just giving the reader more details about the children playing. The first few lines of the second to last stanza show the children playing around, which is what any person would notice. The more mysterious focus on the girls shows the reader that although to us children are just playing around, the playing around feels a lot more complex to the children than it seems to us. They have social structure, “which small queen is about to be brought down,” and their interactions are more deep than just playing around.

I, like anyone who was a young child once, can relate to the excitement the children feel on a snow day. Having no school and playing around in the snow that comes very rarely in Atlanta was truly a magical feeling, and this poem takes me back.

(513 words)

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46707/snow-day

https://stockcake.com/i/snowy-neighborhood-fun_1162404_355864

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