The first line is the DNA of the poem; the rest of the poem is constructed out of that first line. A lot of it has to do with tone because tone is the key signature for the poem. The basis of trust for a reader used to be meter and end-rhyme. Billy Collins More Quotes by Billy Collins More Quotes From Billy Collins All I wanted was to be a pea of being inside the green pod of time. Billy Collins peas green wanted To write poetry is to be very alone, but you always have the company of your influences. But you also have the company of the form itself, which has a kind of consciousness. I mean, the sonnet will simply tell you, that's too many syllables or that's too many lines or that's the wrong place. So, instead of being alone, you're in dialogue with the form. Billy Collins lines writing mean Now I would say at any given moment in American life, there are probably 45 poets in airplanes vectoring across the country heading towards...I don't know if anyone's reading it, but poets are still flying around the country going from lectern to lectern.That circuitry has become very well-established. Billy Collins airplane reading country Robert Frost really started this whole thing rolling. He was, I believe, the first poet who started going to colleges. Before that, poets didn't give public readings very often, certainly not - there was no circuit of schools. Billy Collins reading believe school I hope the poem, as it goes on, gets more complicated, a little more demanding, a little more ambiguous or speculative, so that we're drifting away from the casual beginning of the poem into something a little more serious. Billy Collins serious goes-on littles The really authentic thing about humor is that anyone can pretend to be serious. Anyone who's ever had a job - in fact, we're pretending to be serious now, more or less. Billy Collins serious jobs facts I was able to read poets that were - allowed me to be humorous without being silly. Billy Collins able humorous silly I was a pretty happy kid, I had to fake it. I had to get into this miserable character before I wrote poems. Billy Collins happy-kid character kids I thought originally when I was in school and I wanted to be a poet, I knew that poets seemed to be miserable. Billy Collins miserable poet school I can't picture myself starting out aiming to do anything or having much of an agenda.I think in writing a poem, I'm making some tonal adjustments, and it took me a long time to allow anything like fun into my poetry. Billy Collins writing fun thinking It is as if one by one, the memories you used to harbor decided to retire to the Southern Hemisphere of the brain. Billy Collins southern brain memories Poetry can do a lot of things to people. I mean it can improve your imagination. It can take you to new places. It can give you this incredible form of verbal pleasure. Billy Collins you poetry imagination people I think if a poet wanted to lead, he or she would want the message to be unequivocally clear and free of ambiguity. Whereas poetry is actually the home of ambiguity, ambivalence and uncertainty. Billy Collins free think poetry home We love, you know, children love the ingredients of poetry. And then they go into this tunnel that we call adolescence, and when they come out of it, they hate poetry. Billy Collins you hate love children I'm happy to stick with my persona. There are themes of love lost and love regained, but the main themes of all poems are basically love and death, and that seems to be the message of poetry. Billy Collins poetry happy love death I find that my reading, particularly nonfiction, can inspire a poem as well as anything else. Billy Collins find anything reading inspire A lasting marriage, they say, is one where the two reach for different sections of the Sunday paper. Me, I go right for the obituaries, just like those very elderly characters in Muriel Spark's spooky novel, 'Memento Mori.' Billy Collins they-say me marriage sunday Poems, for me, begin as a social engagement. I want to establish a kind of sociability or even hospitality at the beginning of a poem. The title and the first few lines are a kind of welcome mat where I am inviting the reader inside. Billy Collins i-am beginning me welcome If you write a letter of resignation or something with an agenda, you're simply using a pen to record what you have thought out. In a poem, the pen is more like a flashlight, a Geiger counter, or one of those metal detectors that people walk around beaches with. Billy Collins pen walk you people I'm going through life's cycles at an alarmingly fast pace, but my persona has a Peter Pan quality: he doesn't age. Billy Collins fast quality age life
