I recently was introduced to Billy Collins’s poetry and, naturally, was attracted to that related to animals in some way. Among these, his poems about dogs particularly caught my attention because they captured the true essence of the human-canine bond. This isn’t to say that I don’t enjoy the many poems that romanticize the subject. I find the latter a pleasant diversion when the real world of human-animal interactions threatens to overwhelm me. And yet…
Collins’s dog-related poetry isn’t nearly so predictable. Nor is it always comforting. What it is, though, is real. One poem written in the voice of a euthanized dog tricked me into deep introspection even as I sometimes chuckled then felt horrified that I did. No easy escape into self-cleansing, tear-evoking cliches here! Another one about a relentlessly barking dog perfectly distills the thoughts and emotions that surround this familiar event. In yet another, the seemingly inane act of weighing the dog ultimately connects two people as intimately as a kiss.
I can see why Collins was named our 11th Poet Laureate. For me, he now occupies a special place because, not only is he a poet of real people, he’s also a poet of their very real relationships with very real dogs and I look forward to reading more of his work.