Curiosity And Cregination In Billy Collins '' Hunger By Billy Collins'

Curiosity and imagination are wonderful things, especially when combined and questions arise. I wonder what the dead do when they die? What does a person feel when they lose something that was hard earned? What do those questions look like when they’re answered in a poem? What do those poems look like when they are brought to life in animation? All good questions that Billy Collins and a couple of talented artists have attempted to answer. Their products are then put out for the world to see and criticize or adore for the curious viewer to begin answering the questions put to them. What does a reader feel when they hesitate at the end of a line break? What does the animation bring to life that was never clear? The combined talents of these …show more content…
It sets the tone for the rest of the poem and I envision a man that’s a little scruffy and rough, hauling a bag with his catch to a lonely little cottage hidden away in the forest. His stomach growls discontentedly as he walks through that dark wood too focused on his task to realize that his prize has escaped. His step lightens as he sees his goal ahead, the thought of a hot meal lengthens his stride. I imagine how devastated he must have been to know that the reason his steps were so light and strong was because he had lost his meal. Contrasting this to the video animated by FAD of many dark, dimly lit rooms with the sounds of dripping water and creaking doors. The big reveal at the end with the sudden, bright images of a derelict city making sense in a way that I can’t really explain. It simply makes me feel how right it …show more content…
For example, “I’m sure they’re looking down from heaven and smiling at you.” While that is comforting and beautiful it can also be funny and mildly disturbing. The idea that someone is watching at all times every little mundane thing I do for one is extremely boring and also voyeuristic. Reading it alone gives me a little bit of a chuckle, but watching the animation by Juan Delcan of Spontaneous makes it so much more entertaining. The shapelessness of the dead whose enlarged eyes stare unblinkingly at everything beneath them, especially a young man who wanders about the world in underwear while smoking a cigarette gives a glimpse of both the author’s imagination and the animator’s humor. I feel that the animation made the poem so much more fantastic and impactful as well as imaginative and cheeky. The last lines however, “which make them lift their oars and fall silent/and wait, like parents, for us to close our eyes” (lines 9-10) give me pause as the poem drifts to a close to think about the meaning of those words. The dead wait for us to join them. They watch us (living people) exhaustively until the day we close our eyes to sleep for eternity. It’s a more entertaining and less contemplative poem then the much shorter “Hunger” but still very impactful and lovely when read multiple