Women with Opinions

Billy Collins on mean girls and snow days

 

Snow Day
By Billy Collins

Today we woke up to a revolution of snow,
its white flag waving over everything,
the landscape vanished,
not a single mouse to punctuate the blankness,
and beyond these windows

the government buildings smothered,
schools and libraries buried, the post office lost
under the noiseless drift,
the paths of trains softly blocked,
the world fallen under this falling.

Taking Off Emily Dickinson's Clothes

Thanks to my thoughtful friend Miriam, who alerted me it was going to be on, I was able to catch the segment the PBS NewsHour did last night on the current exhibit at the New York Botanical Garden devoted to Emily Dickinson's garden.

I'm an Emily Dickinson fan, so I flew to NY City in May, then took a 20-minute train ride from Grand Central to the Bronx where the Botanical Garden is located.  Exiting the train, I walked across the street and entered a whole new, serene world.

I especially wanted to be there on May 12th because that was when Billy Collins was going to be there too as part of an Emily Dickinson program.   Billy is also a fan of Emily and read his now famous poem titled "Taking Off Emily Dickinson's Clothes."   It's about Billy's imaginary seduction of the reclusive poet.  Before reading the poem, Billy mentioned that the poem had angered some feminist poets who got their revenge by writing poems of their own titled "Taking off Billy Collins' Clothes." 

Here's the PBS piece:

We're Snowed In! Billy Collins Wrote a Good Poem About That Subject.

Snow Day

Today we woke up to a revolution of snow, 
its white flag waving over everything, 
the landscape vanished, 
not a single mouse to punctuate the blankness, 
and beyond these windows 

the government buildings smothered, 
schools and libraries buried, the post office lost 
under the noiseless drift, 
the paths of trains softly blocked, 
the world fallen under this falling. 

My Mind is a Complete Blank

Christopher Hitchens cracks me up.  For the past year, the outspoken atheist and author of "God is Not Great," has been undergoing a Complete Makeover, and writing hilarious articles about it in Vanity Fair.  The latest installment, "Limits of Self-improvement: Part III," appears in the September issue.

Hitchens is described in Vanity Fair as "full-figured, and ferocious in his consumption of cigarettes and scotch."  Physically he is a total mess with bad teeth, bad hair, and a host of other defects.