Another Reason Why
I Don't Keep A Gun In The House
By Billy Collins
The neighbors’ dog will not stop barking.
He is barking the same high, rhythmic bark
that he barks every time they leave the house.
They must switch him on on their way out.
5 The neighbors’ dog will not stop barking.
I close all the windows in the house
and put on a Beethoven symphony full blast
but I can still hear him muffled under the music,
barking, barking, barking,
10 and now I can see him sitting in the orchestra,
his head raised confidently as if Beethoven
had included a part for barking dog.
When the record finally ends he is still barking,
sitting there in the oboe section barking,
15 his eyes fixed on the conductor who is
entreating him with his baton
while the other musicians listen in respectful
silence to the famous barking dog solo,
that endless coda that first established
20 Beethoven as an innovative genius.
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Vocabulary
Entreating:Asking someone earnestly or anxiously to do something
Coda: The ending part to a piece of music
SKILL #1
Analyzing
Diction
Positive Words: 1. Write words from poem in the bricks
2. What effect do these positive words have on the poem? ______
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3. Why do you think the author made these specific word choices? ______
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Negative Words: 4. Write words from poem in the bricks
5. What effect do these negative words have on the poem? ______
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6. Why do you think the author made these specific word choices? ______
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7. Are there any words, positive or negative that repeat? Write them. What is the impact or purpose of choosing those word to repeat? ______
SKILL #2
Analyzing
Tone
MORE TONE ON BACK
Constructed Response: Which method/tool, in your opinion, does the best job of getting the tone across in this poem? Write a paragraph and use citations and explanations to develop your response. (Remember to include a claim stating which tool you think did the best job, include the name of the poem and author, give examples with MLA citations, and explain how your examples prove your claim. Also remember that poetry uses line numbers for MLA citations, not page numbers.)
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VARIOUS ANALYSES AND BREAK-DOWNS OF THE POEM
Analysis by Andrew Spacey
Introduction
“Another Reason Why I Don't Keep A Gun In The House”is a lengthy, heavy title for what turns out to be a light, imaginative poem. As you read through you discover no further mention of a gun; the narrative takes you into a common domestic scene with barking dog and annoyed neighbor.
Billy Collins, one-time U.S. poet laureate, has fun with a subject that could get others bogged down in controversy and the gun law debate. But his nimble approach to what is a deep, emotional issue for many in America, succeeds because he allows the speaker free rein to wander off at a tangent into the realm of the imagination.
And once there, the poem really takes off, twisting and turning as none other than Beethoven, the classical composer, becomes an integral part of proceedings. Man, dog and music then compete for the speaker's attention and the reader's feelings.
So this poem isn't so much about guns, it's about pets, specifically dogs, and what we do with them when we go out to work, when we neglect them and potentially damage our relationship with them.
The question then has to be asked: Why did the poet choose to use such an emotive title? Out of all the reasons why not to keep a gun in the house, how come a poem about a barking dog and Beethoven isthereason?
The answer has to lie outside of the poem. The answer lies in the effects such a poem might have on the reader.
As Billy Collins himself says'There's mystery in the ordinary. I want to start with some ordinary experience around me and use that as a gate of departure.'
Read Through
Take your time and read through the poem at least twice before taking notes. Jot down any important phrases and words you come across, make a mental note of changes, rhymes, devices, anything that you don't understand.
Note the repetition in the first three lines -barking, barking, bark, barksand the steady rhythm, which is mostly iambic, which takes you onto line 4 and the poet's use of comedy/sarcasm to cover over the incessant noise of the dog.
The speaker repeats a full sentence to emphasize the persistent dog next door and then the narrative, in first person I, logically follows a sequence of attempts to drown out the barking. All to no avail. The dog can still be heard.
Stanza 3 is the turning point for the poem as the speaker now imagines the dog as orchestra member, a quantum leap for the reader. And no doubt the dog.
In the end the dog wins so to speak, he completely takes over both orchestra and domestic space of the speaker, and is endorsed by none other than Ludwig van Beethoven.
This cartoon-like image is vivid and ridiculous but helps to reinforce the idea that the speaker will just have to put up with this noisy canine. If only there was a gun handy?
Tone
How are your feelings affected as you read through this poem? Do you have sympathy for the speaker who is having to endure the dog barking yet again?The first sentence suggests a degree of impatience...will not stop...and the fact that the speaker mentionsthe same high, rhythmic barkmeans he's so tuned into that dog, so fed up with the bark he knows so well.
Perhaps the speaker feels increasing frustration at the thought of the neighbors leaving their dog alone. He becomes annoyed enough to dream up a surreal situation, to offset the negative feelings by inventing this cartoony scenario of a dog in an orchestra.
Poetic Devices
Within a rough iambic pentameter template in a free verse poem, there isassonance:
muffled/music, part/barking,
and consonance between lines, noting the hard c:
barking/can/music/confidently/included/record/section/conductor/respectful/coda
Repetition of certain words helps to bring home the idea that this speaker is already familiar with the situation of the barking dog and absent neighbors.
Andpersonification, appearing in the third stanza, when the dog is seen as being part of the orchestra, barking out a solo performance.
Thoughts about Themes/Topics
Guns and Gun Law: The title clearly sets out the speaker's point of view, but the body of the poem has no direct connection to weaponry.
Pets: Is it right to leave a dog alone in a house time after time? What should a neighbor do if they know a pet is being neglected?
Neighbors: Living close to other people isn't always easy. How should we treat those we live communally with?
Control: How to stay calm and collected when things are getting out of hand.
Creativity: Use of imagination to help manage time and space.
Diction
The poet uses mostly ordinary language in this poem, setting off in an almost casual manner, as if the speaker is on the phone to someone, or making a formal complaint to the authorities.
There's a matter of fact kind of approach from the speaker which continues on into stanza three, when the imaginative leap sees the dog become part of the orchestra, yet the language and delivery hardly alter:
barking, barking, barking,
and now I can see him sitting in the orchestra,
It's as if the speaker is forced into this situation of imagining the dog-in-orchestra-scenario, to avoid extreme annoyance, a self-help mechanism that helps alleviate mental suffering.
The language is mostly unexceptional, sufficient for the basic form and meter.
There are two words that need explanation.Entreatingmeans to seriously urge or ask someone to do something - so the conductor is waving his baton at the dog in order to get the best solo out of him.
And the wordcodain this context means the end piece to a body of music. The dog's solo is the coda, the speaker sarcastically attributing it to Beethoven.
Conclusion
A dog is supposed to be man's best friend but in the poem the incessant barking of this possibly neglected pet forces the speaker to react. As we read we can imagine the pent-up annoyance, the helplessness, the anger.
There's a little dig at the neighbors too by the suggestion that they switch the dog on, like a machine. Could it be that paranoia is creeping into the mindset?
What can the speaker do? Little it seems in practical terms. This dog will bark and bark and bark until someone does something about it. The only solution is to let go of the negative, find no fault in the dog, and transform the noisy barking into a musical solo.
Voila! End of problem.
Not quite. The dog continues, encouraged by a make believe conductor and phantom Beethoven. When will this horrible barking ever stop?
Now we begin to understand the title of the poem. With a gun in the house perhaps there would have been an easy solution. Shoot the dog? Surely not, how awful. What about the speaker shooting himself? Terrible.
Is this poem all tongue in cheek? Is a humorous approach the best way to solve a problem? Laugh it all off? How seriously should we take that title, and is the poem itself strong enough to carry the weight?
Analysis by Anonymous
At first glance when looking at the work you really don't perceive to view the title and thedialogue as one in the same. Although after analyzing the entire content of the poem it's quite evident what is meant by the use of the dog as a symbol. The canine is truly symbolic because it is what it meant by keeping a gun in the house. The symbolic nature derives from the dog's constant barking andthe narrator's need to keep the dog shut. From this active symbolism it can be interpreted that if the narrator in fact did have a firearm he or she would no doubt use it to dispense of the dog. So, it's actually quite ironic that the title is what it is, because while the title alludes to no having a firearm for fear of using it against a constant nuisance(dog) we see the narrator would almost but certainly go against what they display in the title. What it comes down to is that the narrator states they don't keep a gun in their home because they know obviously in the heat of the moment they will utterly use it without constraint and in this case kill the dog.
The symbolic use of the dog in the poem as the main nuisance was uniquely done by Billy Collins. This case of creating the problem to allude from a dog rather than a person gave the story a richer feel in word choice and interestingdialogueto go with. An interesting take on the poem seen was the personification of the dog to act as if it were capable of human traits such as the allusion of "rhythmic bark" and included Beethoven orchestra to mention.
Analysis - Stephen Pinkowski
Mr. Collins is obviously annoyed with the barking dog next door.I can relate to this poem, as I would try to suppress the noise of a next door neighbor’s dog as well. The poet turns the annoyance of the dog, into a playful and humorous event, placing the barking dog into Beethoven’s orchestra.The title is referring to the notion that if he had a gun in the house, he would most likely go next door, and kill the dog. I’m guessing he would regret his decision afterwards, so he decides not to keep a gun in the house all together. The title definitely catches the reader’s attention, in the fact that it is humorous, and just an odd title. The repetition of certain phrases, such as “The neighbors’ dog will not stop barking,” stresses to the reader really how annoying this dog must be. It also seems like that no right-minded artist would ever put a dog into one of his symphony’s, yet when the reader see’s that a dog is in Beethoven’s symphony, and a solo part at that, that it must be automatically accepted and applauded, because it is Beethoven.The way Collins handles this problem through his imagination, creates a new way for him to handle it in a non-violent manner. I think if he did indeed have a gun in his household the dog would die, so not even owning a gun, takes the temptation out of the picture. You can relate to this if you were on a diet, and someone bought a pint of ice cream and stuck it in the freezer. The temptation would be there, and it would most likely turn out badly, resulting in that person eating the ice cream and ruining their diet. On that note, Billy Collins relieves his temptation by not even owning a firearm.