March 4th, 2011
by Jerry Scott & Jim Borgman
Tucson Festival of Books March 12-13
If you live within several thousand miles of Tucson you should be planning to hit the 3rd annual Tucson Festival of Books the weekend of March 12-13. Jerry and I will, uh, not be there this year, but we did presentations and booksignings at the 1st and 2nd annuals and man, they put on a great show. This event didn’t start out little and get big. It started out big and has gotten bigger.
Last year I screwed up my nerve and introduced myself to Billy Collins, my favorite poet with a sense of humor. As is my tradition when meeting my heroes, I made a point of making only inane gurgling sounds in his presence, and he was kind enough to smile and avert his eyes until I stopped.
Here is an introduction to his poems:
Introduction to Poetry
BY BILLY COLLINS
I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide
or press an ear against its hive.
I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,
or walk inside the poem’s room
and feel the walls for a light switch.
I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author’s name on the shore.
But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.
They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.