Old Age and Cheerios

Cheerios
Teddy Tran
English 110AI
October 18, 2012

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Teddy Tran
Professor Westfall
English 110AI
October 18, 2012
Explication: “Cheerios” The central message in Billy Collin’s poem “Cheerios” is that with old age come more wisdom, but how Americans always over look what has already been established for the newest attraction. He uses Cheerios and himself to show how capitalism has taken over Americans.
The poem starts off by setting us right in chilly Chicago on a bright morning. Chicago is the 3rd most populous city in the United States. He then goes on in his first stanza, “I opened the Tribune only to discover / that I was the same age as Cheerios” (Collins 3-4). The Tribune is a major daily newspaper, which is based in Chicago. The Tribune is currently the eighth largest newspaper in the United States circulation. Cheerios have only been around since the ‘40s and the newspaper was celebrating only it’s seventieth birthday. Collins directly compares his birthday to that of Cheerios, “was the seventieth birthday of Cheerios / whereas mine had occurred earlier in the year” (7-8). We see from here that Billy Collins is not that much older than Cheerios. But in America we count and publicize every single age greatly. Everybody is trying to get younger and less people learning how to embrace age.
“Already I could hear them whispering / behind my stooped and threadbare back,” (9-10). This is where Collins establishes his age and really emphasizes how
Tran 2 others see him in age off his appearance alone. A stooped back comes naturally to everybody with age. We can’t keep a straight erect posture for life. The stooped appearance also gives us the impression of a lack of confidence. Threadbare just reinforces how shabby in appearance Collins is in. He might also be referring to a threadbare t-shirt, which is a t-shirt becoming thin and tattered with age as well.
Collins next lines go on to say, “Why that dude’s older than Cheerios / the way they used to say / Why that’s as old as the hills” (11-13). The way people were whispering quietly behind his back and comparing him to Cheerios was not a compliment. When comparing something to a hill before was to demonstrate just how old someone was. Hills have been around for as long as we have all lived. The phrase they used to compare Collins and Cheerios was just a more modern way of exemplifying how old Collins was because for as long as most people in American have been alive, they have known Cheerios as they have known the existence of hills.
Billy Collins then speaks on the main point of the poem, “only the hills are much older than Cheerios / or any American breakfast cereal,” (14-15). He realizes that hills and Cheerios are both very old; hills actually being even older and than cereal itself. But with that he changes the mood of the whole poem when he states, “and more noble and enduring are the hills,” (16). He now explains that the hills are old, but have been proven. They have been there forever, tested and shown to be reliable. The word noble itself means high social or political status. But these hills

Tran 3 are not the ones being celebrated in the newspaper. Cheerios seventieth birthday has taking most of the attention.
With all of this now collected Collins finishes the poem with one last line, “I surmised as a bar of sunlight illuminated my orange juice” (17). Every other line in the poem sits in stanzas that consist of four lines each. But the 17th line in the poem stands by itself. He cannot factually prove that hills are better than Cheerios itself. But from what he knows and has experience age is nothing but a number of years of experience. Every year comes with more wisdom and no matter how old people see him; he comfortably has come to his own understanding. And as the sunlight shines through his orange juice he is reborn.

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Works Cited
Collins, Billy. “Cheerios.” Poetry Magazine. Chicago: Bernard Williams, 2012. Cheerios by Billy Collins : Poetry Magazine. 2012. 18 October 2012
< http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poem/244438>.

Cited: Collins, Billy. “Cheerios.” Poetry Magazine. Chicago: Bernard Williams, 2012. Cheerios by Billy Collins : Poetry Magazine. 2012. 18 October 2012 &lt; http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poem/244438&gt;.