Poetry Response

No Time

By Billy Collins (2002)


In a rush this weekday morning,
I tap the horn as I speed past the cemetery
where my parents are buried
side by side beneath a slab of smooth granite.

Then, all day, I think of him rising up
to give me that look
of knowing disapproval
while my mother calmly tells him to lie back down.


(Response type: #2 --Connect the poem to another works from the course.)

When I initially picked this poem from Billy Collins’ Nine Horses, I was drawn to his dark and wistful humor. Now, however, as I look at the poem again, I am struck by the similarities to themes in Hamlet. Although “No Time” takes place on a highway and not in 16th century Europe, the speaker’s attitude toward death reminds me of Hamlet’s feelings about death, particularly that of his father. The most obvious connection to Hamlet is the image of the speaker’s father rising from his grave to watch his son. The speaker does not seem to be mourning his parent’s death, but finds comfort in imagining them watching over him together, even if disapprovingly. The tone of the second stanza reminds me of Hamlet’s words, “The readiness is all. Since no man of aught he leaves knows, what is’t to leave betimes? Let be” (5.2.236-8). Just as Hamlet has come to terms with the inevitability of death, the speaker in “No Time” does not speak of his parents with sorrow, but instead banters in a humorous and contemplative manner.
The speaker in the poem spends the rest of the day imagining his father just as Hamlet spends almost the entirety of the play fixating on his father’s posthumous request. I also found it interesting in the first stanza the speaker does not pull over or even slow as he passes the cemetery. It seems that the thought of his parents is more reassuring than actually visiting their graves. Similarly, Hamlet instead of acting immediately would rather ruminate on how to respond to his father’s death.