Billy Collins

New books on writing poetry. Highlights of Poetry. Index of poetry. How to Write Poetry.

How to write specific forms: Haibun. Haiku. Hay(na)ku. Rengay. Tanka. Concrete. Ghazal. Lai. Pantoum. Prose poem. Rondeau. Rubáiyát. Sestina. Skaldic verse. Sonnet. Terza rima. Triolet. Tritina. Villanelle.

Poets: Adam Zagajewski. Aleda Shirley. Anne Carson. The Beowulf Poet. Billy Collins. Billy Collins exercise. Snorri's Edda. Carl Dennis. Charles Atkinson. Chase Twichell. Corey Marks. François Villon Franz Wright. Galway Kinnell. Gary Young. The Gawain Poet. Jack Gilbert. Jane Hirshfield. Jean Vengua. J. Zimmerman. J. Zimmerman (haiku). Jorie Graham. Karen Braucher. Karl Shapiro. Kay Ryan. Laureate Poets: Britain; USA. Len Anderson. Les Murray. Li Young Lee. Linda Pastan. Louise Glück. Nordic Skalds. Pulitzer Poetry Prize (U.S.A). Richard Hugo. Robert Bly. Sappho. Sara Teasdale. Shiki (haiku). Snorri's Edda. Stephen Dunn. Ted Kooser. W.S. Merwin.

Billy Collins
Books of Poetry (alphabetical). Billy Collins exercise. Time Line. Books.

Billy Collins featured in:

Best American Poetry: 2007 (guest editor Heather McHugh) with "The New Today".
Best American Poetry: 2004 (guest editor Lyn Hejinian) with "The Centrifuge".
Best American Poetry: 2003 (guest editor Yusef Komunyakaa) with "Litany".
Best American Poetry: 2001 (guest editor Robert Hass) with "Snow Day".
Best American Poetry: 2000 (guest editor Rita Dove) with "Man Listening to Disc".
Best American Poetry: 1999 (guest editor Robert Bly) with "Dharma".
Best American Poetry: 1998 (guest editor John Hollander) with "Lines Composed Over Three Thousand Miles from Tintern Abbey".
Best American Poetry: 1997 (guest editor James Tate) with "Lines Lost Among Trees".
Best American Poetry: 1993 (guest editor Louise Glück) with "Tuesday, June 4th, 1991".

Books of Poetry (alphabetical).

The Apple That Astonished Paris (1988).

Billy Collins' first full-length collection of poetry.

The Art of Drowning.

Questions About Angels .

Sailing Alone Around the Room : New and Selected Poems

The Trouble With Poetry and Other Poems (2005). Blog entry.

Accessible poems, written in common speech that one might use in conversation, with a willingness to look death in the face. In this, they remind me of the (admittedly more romantic and less funny) poems of Sara Teasdale.

In his introduction to Best American Poetry 2006, Billy Collins specifies some selection criteria, so it's interesting to see to what extent he follows his own criteria. The sarcastic "The Student" reinforces Collins' inclination to disagree with rules:

"My poetry instruction book, which I bought at an outdoor stall along the river, contains many rules about what to avoid and what to follow. More than two people in a poem is a crowd, is one. Mention the clothes you are wearing as you compose, is another. Avoid the word vortex, the word velvety, and the word cicada. ..."

Here are some of Collins' Best American Poetry 2006 criteria, and Collins' tendencies:

1. "A human voice speaking to me ... interested in my participation as a reader." 18 (almost half) of the poems sidle up to the reader and address the reader as 'you', often meaning the generic you-as-audience, sometimes implying the spouse, and sometimes naming a person.
2. Opening lines that start "in the 'factual'": all his poems do that.
3. He follow John Ciardi's: "flaws that prevented him from reading any further. ... the mention of mythological beings and the apostrophe 'Oh!' found places on his list." None were noticed.
4. Collins cheerfully declares (implying the fickleness of such lists) that he cannot read further in a poem with the word cicada. Easy exercise for the reader: which cicada-bearing poem entered this book?
5. Poems that are largely memories, particularly of family members or of items associated with a dead person. While many of his poems are set in the present, he certainly reminisces.
6. "Poems that presume an interest on my part in the poet-speaker's psychic condition (usually misery)." [They all do.] And at least six (15%) of the poems are about the poet's process.

Data:

• 43 poems, one lead poem, and the rest divided into four similar-sized sections.
• 85 pages, about 2.0 pages per poem.
• Number of stanzas:
  • None of the poems are written in a single stanza.
  • 2 poems in 2-line stanzas.
  • 16 poems in 3-line stanzas.
  • 8 poems in 4-line stanzas.
  • 1 poem in 5-line stanzas.
  • 1 poem in 6-line stanzas.
  • 2 poems in stanzas of 2-line and 3-lines.
  • 1 sonnet-type poem.
  • 12 poems in stanzas of variable (but usually six or fewer) lines.
• 30 poems need more than one page.

• A convenience sample of the first 10 poems in the book confirms that Collins continues to share with us what he is wearing, eating, and drinking, like a miniature Pepys:
  • Clothes are mentioned on average 1.2 times per poem, with the shirt being the most popular (in 40% of the poems).
  • Colors are mentioned on average 1.1 times per poem, with blue being the most popular (in 30% of the poems).
  • Food is mentioned about twice per poem, with a partiality to toast and bananas.
  • Drink (beer, coffee, ice tea, milk, vodka) is mentioned in half the poems.

• A few other senses:
  • Sounds are mentioned on average 0.7 times per poem, usually as a gerund ("humming", "whistling", "chirping", etc.).
  • Flowers are mentioned on average 0.2 times per poem.

• Acknowledges first publications in:
  • The American Scholar
  • Atlanta Review
  • The Atlantic Monthly
  • Bat City Review
  • Boulevard
  • The Cortland Review
  • Field
  • Five Points
  • Fulcrum
  • The Gettysburg Review
  • Hotel Amerika
  • Living Forge
  • London Review of Books
  • The Massachusetts Review
  • Michigan Quarterly Review
  • Mississippi Review
  • The Nation
  • New Delta Review
  • The New Republic
  • The New Yorker
  • Nightsun
  • Oxford American
  • The Paris Review
  • Poetry
  • Van Gogh's Ear
  • Washington Square Review
  • Western Humanities Review

Time Line.

1941.

Born William J. ("Billy") Collins on March 22.

1968.

Began teaching at Lehman College, New York.

1994.

Poetry magazine selected him as "Poet of the Year".

1997.

Recorded The Best Cigarette, a collection of his poems.

2000.

2001.

Began first term as 44th Poet Laureate of the United States.

Concluded as Distinguished Professor of English at Lehman College, City University of New York.

2002.

Began second term as 44th Poet Laureate of the United States.

2003.

Ended double-term term as 44th Poet Laureate of the United States.

2004.

New York State Poet for 2004.

2005.

Published The Trouble with Poetry and Other Poems.

2006.

Billy Collins selected poems for Best American Poetry 2006.

Books.

Links and Books.

• Laureate: the Poets Laureate of Britain
• Laureate: the Poets Laureate of the U.S.A.
• Best Poems by the Best Poets - Some Lists of Winners.
• Best American Poetry 2006, selected by Billy Collins.
• Other Books of Poetry Form.

Books of Poetry Form. Alphabetic list of poetry forms and related topics. Poetry Home.

Copyright © 2006-2008 by J. Zimmerman, except for the quoted poems. All rights reserved.

[Thanks for visiting.]