Have you ever felt nostalgic for a time and place you've never experienced? That happens to me fairly often, even though that doesn't actually quite make sense. Billy Collins wrote a whole poem about that, which
you can read here.
Discussion Questions:
1. What feelings does this poem evoke for you?
2. What word choices do you find especially interesting?
1. Fondness and interest, I guess, kind of like when I'm reading about classic cars. I guess it's probably because that's something I'm interested in but wasn't around for, like all the things he was talking about. More interest than fondness, though, I think.
ReplyDeleteGood comparison. (Oh look! I'm finally replying to the last few poem comments!!!)
Delete2. I thought calling today's language 'transparent' was interesting, though I can't put my finger on why. Also describing childhood as 'big', because when you're a kid everything seems larger, I guess maybe because you don't know as much then.
ReplyDeleteThat is interesting. Maybe because when people say things nowadays, they just say exactly what they mean, and there's nothing special about it, whereas back then, language constantly had deeper meaning. At least, that's the impression I get from books 😅 Yeah, I didn't notice that, about 'big', that's really cool!
DeleteI agree it's interesting he said language now is "transparent." Like we use the smallest, most obvious words we can so everyone will be sure to understand us, and that gets boring.
Delete1. Almost sadness, honestly. Like it's somehow not fair that I'll never get to experience all those things. Especially with how much culture is a part of what he's talking about, and thinking about how little culture there is left for me and my generation. But also happiness that there are still ways to hear about back in those times.
ReplyDeleteI feel like it's very natural to wish you had been born in an earlier time because "things were obviously better then." And they weren't. Times and fashions and dance crazes and slang words change... but human nature doesn't.
Delete2. I thought how he mentioned dancing so often was kind of interesting. And then at the end, he says, "I was even thinking a little about the future, that place where people are doing a dance we cannot imagine, a dance whose name we can only guess." It makes me wonder if he honestly just means a dance, or if it's a sort of metaphor. But I don't know, because his poetry seems pretty straight forward, like he wouldn't use a lot of metaphors.
ReplyDeleteYes, the dancing is such a fun thing to tie everything together!
DeleteBilly Collins does do metaphors sometimes, but... his language is pretty transparent ;-)