Often examined in terms of everyday issues/predicaments, Billy Collins’s poetry is easily accessible in terms of language and subject matter, making him a widely-known and beloved poet. A Professor of English at Lehman College and former Poet Laureate, he uses both levity and seriousness to explore the human experience. In the United States, an all-too frequent occurrence is divorce. Collins tackles this sensitive issue masterfully in “Divorce,” a four-line, eighteen-word poem that captures the tone of many splits.
“Divorce” hinges on a metaphor that compares the parties involved with flatware. Composed in two couplets, the stanzas represent both the union of the two people (two lines together) and their divorce (two stanzas apart). The second line “now tined forks/” enjambs onto the third line (and second stanza) “across a granite table,” making the reader feel the emotional and physical distance between the forks/individuals and allowing them to linger on the coldness and hardness of the granite. The brevity of the poem is polysemic. It signifies the stunted speech and silence that can exist between a divorcing couple as well as the reduction of their speech to lawyer-speak.
“Once,” the speaker begins, indicating a nostalgic tone and alluding to the fairytale beginning “Once upon a time,” “two spoons in bed.” The metaphor of the spoons conjures images of them nestled in a flatware container, complementing each other’s similar form. We are also reminded of the colloquial phrase “spooning,” which fits nicely into the setting evoked by “bed.” Spoons are not harmful tools; they are used to scoop and stir, and they have no sharp edges. If the spoons are the counterparts in a couple, then the couple is well-functioning, affectionate. At the very least, they do not bring each other pain.
As the nostalgic “Once” suggests, the good times have passed. “now tined forks” the couple has shifted the nature of their relationship. Forks offer a more violent image than spoons: forks pierce food and make terrible sounds when scraped across a plate. They are essentially spears. Additionally, describing the forks as “tined” is redundant, and it emphasizes their potential for harm. The indication here is that the couple no longer fit together like spoons, but as forks, possibly arguing and aiming to hurt each other emotionally, “piercing” each other instead of snuggling with each other.
Line three, “across a granite table” again evokes the idea of emotional and physical distance. Granite, a substance usually found in kitchens, is cold, hard, and uninviting. The “table” offers a sequel to the bed, and is comparatively more impersonal.(Go Back to this section!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
The conclusion of the poem almost removes the couple from conversation, as they are accompanied by “the knives they have hired.” This knives could metaphorically represent the lawyers for the divorce (which we know of only because of the title). This significant jump from spoons and forks to knives indicates the probability of someone getting seriously hurt.
There are two settings in the poem and both concern the home. The first, the bedroom, is a place of intimacy and vulnerability. In the beginning, as the couple “spoons,” they are in the comfort of their bed, an emotionally and physically warm place. The shift from the first stanza to the second brings on a shift in setting as well. Now in a kitchen as instead to a bedroom, the tone of the setting has changed to a cold, hard table where opposition (“across”) is the new model of relating.
Setting