On Turning Ten

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1995

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Background

Literary Context

Originally published in The Art of Drowning (1995), “On Turning Ten” was intended as a tongue-in-cheek satire of the depressing birthday poetry that has been so popular with poets throughout the ages, sometimes candidly known as “midlife crisis poems.” These poems usually involve a poet coming upon a milestone age—always somehow a surprise, no matter how well-prepared the poet might have thought themselves to be—and looking back with melancholy at their lost youth. Poems of this nature can also give stoic advice to others, most often someone younger who is having a birthday. An example of this self-reflective poetry on aging is 18th-century poet Alexander Pope’s “To Mrs. M. B. on Her Birthday.” Pope engages the tropes associated with midlife crisis poetry, such as mourning the past and witnessing death even in the birth of a new year:

With added years if Life bring nothing new,

But, like a Sieve, let ev’ry blessing thro’,

Some joy still lost, as each vain year runs o’er,

And all we gain, some sad Reflection more;

Is that a Birth-Day? ‘tis alas! too clear,

‘Tis but the funeral of the former year (Lines 5-10).

Pope’s mournful tone matches the end of Collins’s poem:

It seems only yesterday I used to believe

there was nothing under my skin but light.

If you cut me I would shine.

But now if I fall upon the sidewalks of life,

I skin my knees. I bleed (Lines 28-32).

“On Turning Ten” was meant to play off the melodrama so often present in works like “To Mrs. M. B. on Her Birthday,” but, as in the example above, it began to take on a deeper meaning of its own. This shift appears in the way the poem progresses from an overly hyperbolic, humorous perspective to something more serious and introspective.

In tone and structure, “On Turning Ten” is very similar to Collins’s contrasting poem “Fiftieth Birthday Eve,” also from the same collection. The latter poem also has references to imagination and daydreaming, despite the vast age gap between the speakers. These two poems can be considered two sides of the same idea, perhaps even two sides of the same narrator across time.

Authorial and Historical Context

Billy Collins turned 10 in the spring of 1951. While this poem clearly was written much later, it’s interesting to note that he has publicly said he wrote his very first poem at 10 years old. This shift in expression of creativity suggests that at that age he went through a subtle spiritual change, that the magic of childhood games began its transformation into something else. As an only child, Collins spent much of his time imagining. In his own words, he says, “I’d look out the window watching for experiences that would trigger a poem.” This mirrors the child’s experience, “But now I am mostly at the window / watching the late afternoon light.” (Lines 17-18) Here we can see the poet he would later become being born for the first time.

During Collins’s childhood in the 1940s and 1950s, the typical childhood illnesses referenced early in the poem—measles, mumps, and chicken pox—were much more common than they are today. In fact, the chicken pox vaccine came into use in the United States in 1995, the same year in which this poem was written. The symbols and images of the poem are left intentionally generic, alluding not to a specific time period or economic class but to all childhoods. However, the references to a bicycle, a treehouse, sidewalks, and sneakers all point to a traditional American suburban upbringing in the mid-20th century.