It's now my pleasure to call back up to the lectern
Mr. Billy Collins, who was introduced moments
ago, earlier, by Dr. Shelton.
But let me just had a personal note that a few years ago, two
or three years ago, Billy was here
in Tucson at the Chamber Festival-- the Tucson
Chamber Festival.
And he sang-- rather, he recited,
though it sounded like he was singing, of course--
"The Invention of the Saxophone" accompanied by a jazz sax
player, and it was one of the most marvelous moments
of marriage of music and words that I had ever heard.
And thanks to Mr. Billy Collins.
[SPEAKING SPANISH]
Billy.
Thank you for those great words.
When Director Gail Brown asked me to--
if I would attend and read some of my favorite poems,
I didn't realize she meant the favorite poems of other people.
[LAUGHTER]
As I mentioned, I'm an only child, so--
The thing about being an only child as it's always your turn.
So I'm going to read some of my poems,
and I'm going to start with a poem--
[LAUGHTER]
[APPLAUSE]
I'm going to start with a poem called "Litany."
And what I did with this poem was,
I wanted to write a poem that was driven by reading a poem,
to write a poem that mocked--
that made fun of-- a certain convention
in European love poetry.
And that convention, used by male poets
to seduce, or at least impress their beloveds--
as they were then quaintly called--
was to compare them to, often, the beauties of nature
or anything they can think of.
And it was thought that they understood
that deep in the soul of womanhood
lay this craving to be compared to stuff.
[LAUGHTER]
I got the inspiration to write the poem
by reading a poem that indulged itself just in a long--
two pages of comparisons, trying to overwhelm this woman
with flattery.
And the poem that this fellow wrote, who will be unnamed,
began looking at the beloved's eyes and saying,
you are the bread and the knife, the crystal goblet
and the wine.
And that's the way I started my poem.
But I'm going to stop myself here, because there's someone--
a friend, a little friend of mine
recites this poem much better than I do.
And I think since you've paid for your seats
and you're supporting the poetry series and the center,
you really deserve the best.
And there's someone who does it better than I do.
And I'm going to let him read this poem,
then I'll come back and read some more.
Two very impressive things about my friend.
One is that he memorized this poem,
and that's more than I can say.
I don't know if I could stand up here without the book.
And I mentioned the power of memorization.
It's not a very memorizable poem,
because it doesn't have end rhyme or regular meter, which
is the way poetry is memorizable.
And the other impressive thing about him, although he turned--
last month he turned four, when he memorized this poem,
he was all of three years old.
Three years old.