"The Symbol"

"The Symbol" is another of Billy Collins' sharp looks at poetry, here deflating the idea that a poem should be able to be read like a fairy tale replete with symbols.

In that regard, it is a worthy follow-up to last week's Slate poem, Marianne Moore's "Poetry," for instead of following Moore's dictum of "real toads in an imaginary garden," fairy tales are nothing more than imaginary toads in imaginary gardens.

From the very first words of the poem, "Once upon a time," we know we are reading a far-fetched fairy tale. The idea of two oval mirrors facing each other in a barbershop (have you ever seen oval mirrors in a barbershop?) is as unlikely as a valley "lined with the molars of high mountains," because mountains cannot be both high and molar-like.

Collins continues to pull our leg with "It's hard to say how the mirrors felt." Well, in real life it's impossible to say how the mirrors felt, but in fairy tales it's certainly possible, especially given the famous "Mirror, mirror, on the wall…." And where but in a fairy tale would we get universal symbols like "the unshorn, the clean-cut, and the bald" to represent youth, middle-age and old age?

We get deeper into the fairy tale when Collins switches gears and gives the mirrors the human quality of having patience and the magical quality of looking "down the long / corridors of each other." But what do they see in each other – something about the human condition? No, one sees "dead mirrors of the past" and the other sees "unborn mirrors of the future." What exactly does that mean, especially since we already know that when people are around, mirrors cannot help doubling / whatever stands or passes in front of them." And of what use is a mirror without people to look into it? Is the mirror a symbol of something relevant to humans or not?

To "help" us out "in case anyone asks you," Collins teases us with "the barber shop / must symbolize the present." Oh, yeah? If so, do we have read the razors, towels, chairs, closed awning, big window and barbershop pole symbolically as well? When do the symbols end? And if the list includes "the two mirrors who lived unhappily ever after," what, pray tell, do THEY symbolize? In a fairy tale, can a cigar be just a cigar, can a big window be just a big window?

To me, the only symbol in Billy Collins' poem is the poem-as-fairy-tale itself. And the "moral" of this poem-as-fairy-tale, since all fairy tales MUST have a moral, is not to read or write a poem as a fairy tale laden with archetypal symbols, for they are stale and/or meaningless. Instead, as Moore suggested, populate your imaginary garden with real toads, not fairy tale fluff. Then, and only then, will you have something worthy to be called poetry.

I admire Collins' willingness to take the chance of being misread by writing this subtle, but wise poem.

-- MaryAnn
(To reply, click here)