The Apple That Astonished Paris Book Review

The book under review is The Apple That Astonished Paris by Billy Collins. Collins is an American poet and the poems included in this book were written between 2001 and 2003.
On a literal level the book is a single project composed of two sections, Away and Home. The poems are typically short consisting of around twenty-five lines written in unrhymed free verse. The writing style can be compared to that of Robert Frost, but holds a sort of innocence and playfulness with the world. The poems can be described as being straightforward, but elegantly angled to open the readers mind. The poetry of Billy Collins is the sort that anyone can appreciate. His use of simple words allows his short critiques on the world to be followed by all, but they still can withhold a complexity to invigorate the mind. At first glance his poems are often witty and light in delivery, but beneath can hold some somber truths of life. There seems to be an underlying tone of rethinking the world of knowledge and putting it in terms personal experience. Likewise the poems try to take what is commonplace and challenge their mundane dismissal. Some poems seem to be the words spoken from a wiseman reflecting on the world. Others seem to be narratives of the common man observing his world and sharing his knowledge gained through personal experience.

In an overall sense, it is an easygoing book of poetry. A reader can flip from page to page reading a poem a few times lingering for a moment and moving on without much sense of disillusion. Moving on though, the reader may have gained a deeper appreciation for the subject of the poem, which perhaps is the poet’s central purpose in writing this short book. Each poem seems to examine a part of life and either reflects upon its power or challenges its preconceptions in the readers mind. The subjects focused on in the poems range from the euthanasia of a cat to cancer to the clock on a wall of a bar. Some poems though dive deeply into the figurative. Collins seems to have a knack for explaining the intangible through metaphor.

From the style of Collins, an aspiring poet might hope to emulate the simplicity of wording and complexity of meaning held within his poetry. A writer need not try to impress readers with flowery words and complex phrases, but shock them with a simple explanation that stems into infinites of meaning. I think the simple complexities of his poems is what makes Collins book worth the read.