Matthew Caretti
Meeting Billy Collins:
An Abridged Version
We gather at the headmaster’s home. Well wetted with cocktails and the onset of spring, I am introduced. Haiku is mentioned. He smiles. Mentions his She Was Just Seventeen. Makes a case for an adherence to the 5-7-5 structure. I smile. Share some of my own poems. None of them comprise seventeen syllables. We smile. He is armed away to be introduced to the trustees. I move again for the bar. Enjoy the gratis drinks too much. Cut myself off and prepare to leave. We pass again in the throng of teachers and he hands me a napkin. Folded inside a haiku. 5-7-5. Something about a cobweb and broom.
after midnight sweeping a few syllables into the bin
About the Author
Matthew Caretti began publishing his poems in 2009, though his fascination with Eastern short-form genres began much earlier. In 2017, he garnered the Snapshot Press eChapbook Award for Harvesting Stones. In 2022 published his first collection in print, Africa, Buddha, with Red Moon Press. He lives and teaches high school English in Pago Pago, American Samoa.
Nice one Matthew. I don’t know whether your tale is literally true, but it’s a truism for all of us that 5-7-5 sound units in Japanese do not equate to 5-7-5 syllables in English, and trying to write 575 haiku often results in overblown poems. On the other hand, Billy Collins, whom I very much admire as a poetic wordsmith and one of my favourite free verse poets with respect to content and accessibility, is probably someone who can pull off a 575 syllable poem without it sounding longish and unnecessarily embellished. Cheers, Ray
Talofa, Ray! And thanks for your comment. Indeed, this is a mostly true story. And I too hold Billy Collins in high regard. I think that was part of the fun in composing this piece
–who am I to even consider editing one of his poems?