Image in Billy Collins' "Snow Day"

“Show, don’t tell” (Burroway 17). Every aspiring writer has heard these words at least once in their career. But what do they mean? After all, writing is all about telling-people tell stories, they show movies. And yet, if asked, I believe most authors would state that their goal is to create scenes so vivid they play out like miniature films in readers’ imaginations. In order to create these miniature motion-pictures, a writer has to set the ‘stage’ of the mind with words carefully chosen not only to impart physical actions (i.e. what is happening to characters) but also emotional valence (to both the characters and the reader). In his poem, “Snow Day” Billy
Collins does a superlative job capturing the essence of a winter’s day, and projecting it word by word, like some type of home movie, directly into his readers’ imaginations.

The first stanza of the poem begins perfectly: “Today we woke up to a revolution of snow, / its white flag waving over everything…” (38). This is no mere snowfall; it is a “revolution”, something violent, dangerous, angry, joyful and freeing. It is the fall of tyrants, the triumph of the people, and the horror of social upheaval. He sympathizes with the “anarchic cause of snow”, and struggles to hear “which small queen is about to be brought down” (39). Small changes and one simple conceit transform a mere recitation of a common winter events- snowfall, school closings and the petty rivalries of small children- into the stuff of epic literature. That is “showing, not telling”, that is what makes Collins’ work fascinating to read-he writes as if directing Les Misérables, not reciting a weather report.

Week 2 Reading Response: Collins’ Snow Day

Collins’ poetry typically manages to capture the magical normalcy of ordinary life, and “Snow Day” is no different. In it, he deals with the abstract concept of how people interact with their environment, in this case in the setting of the morning after a heavy snowfall. To illustrate the amount of snow, Collins compares it to water in the third stanza. “In a while, I will put on some boots/and step out like someone walking through water,” captures the heavy resistance which the speaker expects to overcome with each step; “and the dog will porpoise through the drifts,” both helps the reader visualize the dog’s future bounding through the snow drifts, and the apparent ease and naturalness which will accompany each bound (Line11-13). There are more examples, such as the smothered, buried, and lost states of public buildings throughout lines 6-7.

While his "revolution of snow" aptly captures how the snow has unilaterally changed the physical environment people must adapt their routines around, Collins tackles the interaction between people and society with more subtlety (Line 1). Besides the initial building closures (and the halt of rail traffic in line 9), the speaker addresses his own dilemma of what to do with half-hearted protest. While the speaker claims to be a prisoner, conjuring up the abstraction of freedom (or the lack of freedom, in this case), he or she also claims to be willingly acceptant of this situation (Line 16). The speaker even goes on to describe how he or she is, “a sympathizer with the anarchic cause of snow,” putting the speaker at odds with the general duties of both the aforementioned public buildings from the first part of the poem, as well as the schools in later stanzas (Line 17). Perhaps Collins was speaking to the need for rest from the continuous, and onerous, daily grind demanded by society from its citizens; a day to rest, relax, and recuperate as people enjoy the simple joys of nature. Or perhaps I’m editorializing here, as a good snow is one of my favorite things when I don’t have to shovel it out of my driveway. Regardless, Collins and his imagery reminded me once again why I enjoy his poetry so much with this reading.