The Lanyard - Billy Collins
The other day I was ricocheting slowly
off the blue walls of this room,
moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.
No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one into the past more suddenly—
a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp
by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid long thin plastic strips
into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.
I had never seen anyone use a lanyard
or wear one, if that’s what you did with them,
but that did not keep me from crossing
strand over strand again and again
until I had made a boxy
red and white lanyard for my mother.
She gave me life and milk from her breasts,
and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sick room,
lifted spoons of medicine to my lips,
laid cold face-cloths on my forehead,
and then led me out into the airy light
and taught me to walk and swim,
and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.
Here are thousands of meals, she said,
and here is clothing and a good education.
And here is your lanyard, I replied,
which I made with a little help from a counselor.
Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
strong legs, bones and teeth,
and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,
and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.
And here, I wish to say to her now,
is a smaller gift—not the worn truth
that you can never repay your mother,
but the rueful admission that when she took
the two-tone lanyard from my hand,
I was as sure as a boy could be
that this useless, worthless thing I wove
out of boredom would be enough to make us even.
The Lanyard, by Billy Collins, is a really good poem. I chose this poem because I am familiar with it. In my AP English and Literature Composition this year, we read a poem every day before class. This poem first came to my attention when we had our daily poem reading. Another time in that class, we listened and watched a video clip of Billy Collins reciting some of his poems. First of all, Mr. Currin is a big fan of Billy Collins and has shared a lot of his work with us. Billy Collins is starting to grow on me and I really appreciate his work as well. This poem is well written and very fun. Some poems bore me and are hard to pay attention to. This one is different. It keeps me interested and makes me think at the same time. My mother has done so much for me in life and she’s the reason why I am here. Nothing I do or say could ever repay her for all she’s done. It makes me think of my childhood when I would make silly little crafts for her. I thought they were so great, and she acted like they were as well. Looking back, I think about how small those little things were compared to the amount of things she did for me. This poem is humorous but sort of presents a very powerful message. As young children, we are so naïve. I think this poem is so cute and I respect Billy Collins as a poet. He took something so random and small and then contrasted it with huge concepts such as life, love, education, and food. I also like this poem because the point of it is so clear. A lot of poems are hard to decipher but this one was very straightforward and fun.
I think that what attracts me to the work of Billy Collins is how accessible it is. I was able to attend a poetry reading of his a couple of summers ago, and he spoke about the accessibility of his work. He said that often, readers of poetry assume a poem to be good if it is difficult to understand. I don't think that complexity necessarily makes a poem good. It was comforting to hear a poet speak this way. I'm glad that you have found a poet that interests you. I'll be sure to sneak more Collins into our daily poetry routine!
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