Poem |
Explication |
I remember the quick, nervous bird of your love.
Iremember the quick, nervous bird of your love. Always perched on the thinnest highest branch. Always perched on the thinnest highest branch. Thinnest love, remember the quick branch. Always nervous, I perched on you highest bird the. It is time for me to cross the mountain. It is time for me to cross the mountain. And find another shore to darken with my pain. And find another shore to darken with my pain. Another pain for me to darken the mountain. And find the time, cross my shore, to with it is to. The weather warm, the handwriting familiar. The weather warm, the handwriting familiar. Your letter flies from my hand into the waters below. Your letter flies from my hand into the waters below. The familiar water below my warm hand. Into handwriting your weather flies you letter the from the. I always cross the highest letter, the thinnest bird. Below the waters of my warm familiar pain, Another hand to remember your handwriting. The weather perched for me on the shore. Quick, your nervous branch flew from love. Darken the mountain, time and find was my into it was with to to. PARADELLEWhat exactly is a paradelle? Well it is a form of poetry that Billy Collins invented as a joke. He even made up a footnote to make it seem like this form was historical, but it wasn't. The word paradelle is a combination of the words "parody" and "villanelle". A villanelle is a fixed form written in a fixed form. A paradelle consist of lots of repetition. For each stanza the first and second lines are the same and the third and forth lines are the same. The fifth and sixth lines are the words previously written, but arranged in a different order with the extra words added to the end. The last stanza is a mix of all the previous stanzas's words put together.
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Upon first reading this poem I found it to be very confusing and somewhat hard to follow. It was so confusing that it was almost incomprehensible. All I could figure out was that it was about love. I read it again finding it just as confusing as the first time but also taking the time to notice diction. For each stanza Collin's only used the same repeating words: no more and no less. He also ended the poem, creating a stanza that used every word in the previous stanzas just once. Also if any extra words did not fit within the flow of a line he added the extra words to the end. After getting past the form and diction of the poem I tried to really focus on the meaning. I read it again still getting nothing. I then read it again finally seeing that the speaker is speaking of a love that has come and gone from his life. He/ She is letting go of this love and ready to move on.
CriticismVirginia Shedd wrote for The Explicator, "Love's : Lost Words: Billy Collins's PARADELLE FOR SUSAN. She writes even though Collins's wrote this form as a joke interpretations can be made. First though she remover the repeating lines and the extra words at the end of the stanzas. Doing this provides a more comprehensive way to the work. When she does this she is able to see that there is a relationship the has disintegrated. She is able to see that Collins's makes metaphors to explain all the heartbreak that the speaker has gone through. For example he is letting go of a letter which Shedd is significant to "the lasting pain that exist". Shedd also comments on how maybe the confusion of the form is also a way to express the pain that is coming from the speaker and that the repeated lines are emphasizing more pain and confusion of his heart.
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