A Particularly Interesting Prairie Home Companion Guest

Today I went to the Prairie Home Companion Radio Show at the Town Hall in NYC with Tio. He's a huge fan of PHC, and practically adores Garrison Keillor for his ingenuity and creativity as he spins out show after show each week, each as creative as the previous one. Today, one of the special guests was Billy Collins, the former Poet Laureate of the United States. He had some pretty funny poems. Here were two of my favourites.

(Before you jump to conclusions about the title of the first poem, read it!)

OH, MY GOD

Not only in church
and nightly by their bedsides
do young girls pray these days

Wherever they go,
prayer is woven into their talk
like a bright thread of awe

Even at the pedestrian mall
outbursts of praise
spring unbidden from their glossy lips.

When Mr. Collins read in a poetry book that that one should never use the word suddenly to create tension in writing, he decided, since, after all, he was a poet, he would ignore the rules. As a result of being a total nonconformist, he intentionally weaved the word 'suddenly' at least once into every stanza and of course had to call the poem "Tension".

Tension
By Billy Collins

Never use the word suddenly just to create tension.
-Writing Fiction

Suddenly, you were planting some yellow petunias
outside in the garden,
and suddenly I was in the study
looking up the word oligarchy for the thirty-seventh time.

When suddenly, without warning,
you planted the last petunia in the flat,
and I suddenly closed the dictionary
now that I was reminded of that vile form of governance.

A moment later, we found ourselves
standing suddenly in the kitchen
where you suddenly opened a can of cat food
and I just as suddenly watched you doing that.

I observed a window of leafy activity
and beyond that, a bird perched on the edge
of the stone birdbath
when suddenly you announced you were leaving

to pick up a few things at the market
and I stunned you by impulsively
pointing out that we were getting low on butter
and another case of wine would not be a bad idea.

Who could tell what the next moment would hold?
another drip from the faucet?
another little spasm of the second hand?
Would the painting of a bowl of pears continue

to hang on the wall from that nail?
Would the heavy anthologies remain on the shelves?
Would the stove hold its position?
Suddenly, it was anyone’s guess.

The sun rose ever higher in the sky.
The state capitals remained motionless on the wall map
when suddenly I found myself lying on a couch
where I closed my eyes and without any warning

began to picture the Andes, of all places,
and a path that led over the mountains to another country
with strange customs and eye-catching hats,
each one suddenly fringed with colorful little tassels.