critical+analysis+page

I wonder how it all got started, this business about ‍seeing your life flash before your eyes ‍ while you drown, as if panic, or the act of submergence, could startle time into such compression, crushing decades in the ‍vice ‍ of your desperate, final seconds.
 * ‍‍The Art Of Drowning ‍ ‍ **

After falling off a steamship or being swept away in a rush of floodwaters, wouldn't you hope for a more leisurely review, ‍an invisible hand turning the pages of an album of photographs- you up on a pony or blowing out candles in a conic hat ‍.

<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14px;">How about a short animated film, a slide presentation? <span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14px;">Your life expressed in an essay, or in one model photograph? <span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14px;"><range type="comment" id="35519">‍Wouldn't any form be better than this sudden flash? ‍ <span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14px;">Your whole existence going off in your face <span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14px;">in an <range type="comment" id="745919">‍eyebrow-singeing explosion ‍ of biography- <span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14px;">nothing like the three large volumes you envisioned.

<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14px;">Survivors would have us believe in a brilliance <span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14px;">here, some bolt of truth forking across the water, <span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14px;">an ultimate Light before all the lights go out, <span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14px;">dawning on you with all its <range type="comment" id="344674">‍megalithic tonnage ‍ <span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14px;">But if something does flash before your eyes <span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14px;">as you go under, <range type="comment" id="717770">‍it will probably be a fish, ‍

<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14px;">a quick blur of curved silver darting away, <span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14px;">having nothing to do with your life or your death. <span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14px;">The tide will take you, or the lake will accept it all <span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14px;">as you sink toward the <range type="comment" id="866682">‍weedy disarray ‍ of the bottom, <span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14px;"><range type="comment" id="100512">‍leaving behind what you have already forgotten, <span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14px;">the surface, now overrun with the high travel of clouds. ‍

Billy Collins



Sophia Foster Foster 1 Critical Analysis English 9H Salamone Death’s Pictogram In the poem “The Art Of Drowning”, Billy Collins questions the idea of seeing your life flash before your eyes as you approach your death. Almost making fun of the fact that people say this happens, Collins shares his opinion about why he thinks this “flash” is an unreasonable thing to believe in and he may be spot on. The poem begins by questioning the idea of having our life flashing before your eyes as we die. Collins writes, “…wouldn’t you hope for a more leisurely review, an invisible hand turning the pages of an album of photographs- you up on a pony or blowing out candles in a conic hat” (Collins 1).It is true that this doesn’t seem as though it could be a good way to look through all your memories, so why do people always speak of this flash? Collins goes on to write, “Wouldn’t any form be better than this sudden flash? Your whole existence going off in your face in an eyebrow-singeing explosion of biography- nothing like the three large volumes you envisioned” (Collins 1). This flash is referred to as an “eyebrow-singeing expierience” perfectly and nothing could explain it better. People who survive their close to death encounter will tell you about their experience, everything they saw in this flash. “Survivors would have us believe in a brilliance here, some bolt of truth forking across the water, an ultimate light before all the Foster 2 lights go out, dawning on you with all its megalithic tonnage” (Collins 1). This “flash” for the people out there who have apparently experienced it say how it is some big life changing deal, but Collins doesn’t believe this idea and takes it as more of a joke. Collins shows his humor towards this idea by saying, “But if something does flash before your eyes as you go under, it will probably be a fish” (Collins 1). Another way Collins shows his humor is how he refers to the flash as an “eyebrow-singeing explosion” and how he says he would prefer to have a “short animated film” or a “slide presentation” rather then a flash. This flash seems as though it would not be the first thing on someone’s mind as they are heading towards their death, instead maybe a bit of panic and then a calmness that would take over as you leave. “The tide will take you, or the lake will accept it all as you sink toward the weedy disarray of the bottom, leaving behind what you have already forgotten, the surface, now overrun with the high travel of clouds” (Collins 1). Collins seems as though he is just brushing off the idea of this flash. Collins has found a way to take something as serious as death and turn it in to something humorous. For some this flash holds much importance and is a symbol of some sort. To Collins, this flash is nothing more then a joke.