Nine Horses- Billy Collins

“For my birthday, my wife gave me nine horse heads”. The bizarre and direct opening of Billy Collins’ “Nine Horses” instantly prepares the reader for what one assumes are encouraging themes of eccentricity, originality, and wit. It is only upon reaching the third line of the first stanza where the modest implication of death and restriction is noted: “ghostly photographs on squares of black marble, nine squares set in one large square.” The assonance of the ‘gho’ and ‘pho’ introduce a tone of supernaturalism since these sounds are often associated with ghosts; with the nine horse heads, metaphorically speaking, ‘trapped’ behind the frames of the photographs, constrained of freedom and held against a colour often related to loss and grief.
A key theme of weakness is revealed where the first person mentions the sculpture is “so heavy that the artist himself volunteered to hang it”; with senses of primitiveness and hostility used within the choice of hard materials and cold colours: “from a wood beam against a white stone wall”. The first stanza reveals how disconnected the horses are to any warmth or understanding, and it is this poignancy grown from their alienation which haunts the entire poem.
The imagery of colour is used in a various number of ways, such as symbolising the energy and life of the horses and representing what is good and evil in the poem. “Pale heads of horses in profile” shows the sheer weakness and fragility of the horses, but also suggests that their photographs were taken when they were dead, adding to the poem’s developing feel of voyeurism. The following line, “as if a flashcube had caught them walking in the night” introduces the theme of spying through the use of the word “caught”, with the pathetic fallacy of the night representing darkness and horror.
This feel of intimidation leads onto the third stanza, referring to the two lines: “pale horse heads that overlook my reading chair” and “the photographer standing over them.” Repetition is used on the paleness of the horses to emphasise their lack of spirit and vitality, with the looming of their heads above him creating an eerie and unsettling image. The characterization of the photographer is callous and dominant, as he looks down on the horses and invades their personal space. He is also seen as villainous, “his black car parked by the stable door”, which refers back to the use of colour signifying him as dark, mysterious, and evil character. Through their suffering and humiliation, “the mouths so agape they could be dead”, the horses may have come back to haunt the protagonist of the poem in a possible act of revenge, eerily watching over him with “eyes so hollow they must be weeping.”
Our eyes are often known as ‘the windows to our souls’, so if the horses are baring no expression in their eyes then this implies that their own souls are indeed empty; linking back to the tone of absence and the horse’s isolation from all that is humane.
The poem’s free-verse pattern reflects the surprisingly casual tone of the protagonist in the beginning. They do not seem to be seriously horrified by the gift their wife has bought them, nor are they overwhelmed with gratitude. Instead they appear to be sympathetic and full of sorrow: “it hardly matters, such sadness is gathered here.” The sixth stanza pinpoints the horses’ lack of freedom: “so far from the pasture”, and their distance from the comforting faces of saviours: “the face of St. Bartholomew, the face of St. Agnes.”

A focus is brought on the horses through the common use of enjambments, since each time they are mentioned a new separate line begins. It is as if they are given a title, the horses are entitled to an authority that they lacked when they were powerlessly lying on the ground whilst the photographer took pictures.
The horses fail to show strength in identity and individuality since they all appear to look the same: “nine white horses, or one horse the camera has multiplied by nine”, which also introduces a feel of not knowing what the real truth is. The horses are represented as worthless in the opening line to the seventh stanza: “odd team of horses pulling nothing”, meaning that their work is not needed indeed futile.
However, the horses take on a more powerful role within the next several stanzas as the protagonist places themselves as their inferior. After emotive impressions of vulnerability the horses become “gods”, disapproving of the protagonist’s lifestyle: “look down on these daily proceedings”. The reader is given an insight to how the protagonist lives, and it soon becomes evident that their life is as impassive and haunting as the faces of the horses themselves: “look down upon this table and these glasses, the furled napkins, the evening wedding of the knife and fork”.
The setting appears to be ordered and controlled, with personification used with the knife and fork to represent how the protagonist and his wife live, since romantic imagery is used from the words “evening wedding”. It is expected for a knife and fork to be placed together, as it is expected for a husband to love his wife, with the connotations of these two cold and sharp objects representing bitterness and brutality in their marriage. The whole image suggests that their relationship is ritualistic and based on impression, and from this the horses show their displeasure so that the humans “may rejoice in the error of our ways.”
As the poem was written in the one year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, this line relates to the corrupt nature of humans and how society has lost its connection with one another. Since they are animals, the horses know nothing of the powerful emotions which trigger humans to act in the barbaric way they do, and in a sense they are therefore the stronger species. It is already implied that the horses are more patient than humans: “your gentle forbearance”, and through their simple and pure minds they could easily teach humans lessons in morality and integrity.
Besides this, the general presence of horses can also create feelings of unease due to their large builds and effortless ability to seriously harm or kill. The poem seems to capture a tone of apparition through the morbid imagery of the horse heads alone, with this representation dating back to the iconic scene in Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Godfather” (1972) where character Jack Woltz wakes up to find the executed head of his racehorse in his bed.
The imagery of a séance is used in the lines “look down on this ring of candles flickering under your pale heads” which connects with the ghost imagery and again gives the horses the superiority of looking down on the humans.
The last three lines conclude the positions of the humans and the horses: “be the bridle that keeps us from straying from each other, be the cinch that fastens us to the belly of each day, as it gallops away, hooves sparking into the night”. The humans are locked together, incapable of expressing true emotions or feelings, whilst the horses, no longer on earth, are given full reign in the beauty of freedom.