Litany

The poem’s title is a play on its genre: “Litany” is an example of a blazon, or a poem that enumerates a (typically female) lover’s positive attributes through a list of hyperbolic similes and metaphors. This style of love poetry is extremely old; examples include the Song of Songs from the Old Testament (see: Further Reading & Resources). Mocking the overblown comparisons blazons usually deploy is also a fairly old maneuver. For example, William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130, “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun” (see: Further Reading & Resources), deflates the appearance of his beloved, acknowledging that it could never match the wild extremes of blazon and pointing out that unrealistic comparisons actually devalue love. Collins picks up this tradition. The word “litany,” which means a boring and tedious recited list, announces his intention to mock the blazon genre from the outset.

“Litany” opens with an epigraph, or a citation of another work of literature; in this case, the epigraph is two lines of an untitled love poem by Belgian poet Jacques Crickillon. When asked about this epigraph, Collins joked, “When you see a poem that seems to fail you can just rewrite it and improve upon it that way” (Armenti, Peter.