When I became poet laureate, I was in a slightly uncomfortable position because I think a lot of poetry isn't worth reading. Billy Collins More Quotes by Billy Collins More Quotes From Billy Collins One of the ridiculous aspects of being a poet is the huge gulf between how seriously we take ourselves and how generally we are ignored by everybody else. Billy Collins differences poetry self But tomorrow, dawn will come the way I picture her, barefoot and disheveled, standing outside my window in one of the fragile cotton dresses of the poor. She will look in at me with her thin arms extended, offering a handful of birdsong and a small cup of light. Billy Collins light offering bird Poetry is like standing on the edge of a lake on a moonlit night and the light of the moon is always pointing straight at you. Billy Collins moon lakes night A motto I've adopted is, if at first you don't succeed, hide all evidence that you ever tried. Billy Collins motto succeed firsts But my heart is always propped up in a field on its tripod, ready for the next arrow. Billy Collins arrows fields heart In the process of simplifying oneself, one often discovers the thing called voice. Billy Collins oneself voice process The mind can be trained to relieve itself on paper. Billy Collins paper mind So many names, there is barely room on the walls of the heart. Billy Collins wall names heart Nationalism is a type of insanity in which the boundaries of a land replace God. Billy Collins land boundaries insanity But tonight, the lion of contentment has placed a warm heavy paw on my chest. Billy Collins lions contentment tonight While the novelist is banging on his typewriter, the poet is watching a fly in the windowpane. Billy Collins novelists poet typewriters Write the poem only you can write. Billy Collins writing A sentence starts out like a lone traveler heading into a blizzard at midnight, tilting into the wind, one arm shielding his face, the tails of his thin coat flapping behind him. Billy Collins midnight tails wind Introduction To Poetry I ask them to take a poem and hold it up to the light like a color slide or press an ear against its hive. I say drop a mouse into a poem and watch him probe his way out, or walk inside the poem's room and feel the walls for a light switch. I want them to waterski across the surface of a poem waving at the author's name on the shore. But all they want to do is tie the poem to a chair with rope and torture a confession out of it. They begin beating it with a hose to find out what it really means. Billy Collins wall names mean The poem is not, as someone put it, deflective of entry. But the real question is, 'What happens to the reader once he or she gets inside the poem?' That's the real question for me, is getting the reader into the poem and then taking the reader somewhere, because I think of poetry as a kind of form of travel writing. Billy Collins real writing thinking I'm speaking to someone I'm trying to get to fall in love with me. I'm trying to speak intimately to one person. That should be clear. I'm not speaking to an audience. I'm not writing for the podium. I'm just writing, trying to write in a fairly quiet tone to one other reader who is by herself, or himself, and I'm trying to interrupt some silence in their life, which is utterance. Billy Collins falling-in-love silence writing All they want to do is tie the poem to a chair with a rope and torture a confession out of it. They begin beating it with a hose to find out what it really means. Billy Collins rope ties mean You come by your style by learning what to leave out. At first you tend to overwrite—embellishment instead of insight. You either continue to write puerile bilge, or you change. In the process of simplifying oneself, one often discovers the thing called voice. Billy Collins style voice writing I can hear the library humming in the night, Billy Collins night book son And I should mention the light which falls through the big windows this time of day italicizing everything it touches. Billy Collins light window fall
