There are quite a few poems of Billy Collins, former US Poet Laureate, on YouTube that have been animated. I wonder about making these videos to go along with poems. Do you think these images are helpful for your understanding of the poem, or do these images take away your ability to create your own images from these words? Do you like these specific images that were chosen to represent this poem? Is something lost not being able to see where the poet breaks the line?
Below, Billy Collins reads his poem "The Dead" with animation by Juan Delcan.
Some quotes from Billy Collins about this specific poem:
"It's an unlikely vision of heaven, I don't know what it means. It's just how they are looking at us. It's pretend."
"Poetry is clearly very serious for me, but without heaviness or a glib sense of spirituality," he said. "I wouldn't set myself up that way. I think humor is a very serious thing. I use it as a way of weakening the reader's defenses so that I can more easily take him to something more."
The Dead
The dead are always looking down on us, they say.
While we are putting on our shoes or eating a steak,
they are looking down through the glass bottom boats of heaven
as they row themselves slowly through eternity.
They watch the tops of our heads moving below on earth,
and when we lie down in a field or on a couch,
drugged perhaps by the hum of a long afternoon,
they think we are looking back at them,
which makes them lift their oars and fall silent
and wait, like parents, for us to close our eyes.
Here are some more videos of Billy Collins' poems:
Man In Space (this one uses old movie clips as its images)
Forgetfulness (this one uses photographed images and animation)
