Billy Collins Quotes
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My persona is less miserable than a lot of contemporary poetry speakers are.
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I'm easily frightened, and I've also come to realize that old Catholic guilt or remorse is easily stimulated.
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Cummings' career as a writer - and a painter - was as wobbly as his love life. He tried his hand at playwriting, satirical essays, and even a dance scenario for Lincoln Kirsten.
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If an artist is driven primarily by social responsibility, I think the art probably suffers because, again, just as leadership has a rather defined end point or purpose, social responsibility would seem to have a very clear moral context.
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When I write, I'm not trying to be funny. It's the way I look at the world.
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When I discovered the lyric poem, that advanced not by narrative steps but by blocks and layers of imagery, I said, 'Gee, I probably could do that. So let me try that.'
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To a poet, it's quite ruinous to have a poem distorted, out of shape, or squeezed, shall we say, into this tiny screen. But I'm not sure big digital companies are sensitive to the needs of poets.
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The pen is an instrument of discovery rather than just a recording implement. 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.
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I first came across 'The Lake Isle of Innisfree' in college, with other anthologized poems by Yeats.
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I'm all for poetry catching up with technology, and just as there are iTunes, I think we should have iPoems. I mean, people should be able to walk around with their earbuds in and listening to poems on their iPod.
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The obituaries shot up to the top of my list when I discovered Robert McG. Thomas, the 'Times' obit writer who redesigned its traditional form and added a measure of stylistic elegance.
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I don't think anybody reads a book of poetry front to back. Editors and reviewers only. I don't think anybody else does.
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I think it's good not to make demands on the reader too early. But as the poem goes on, I want the journey of the poem to lead into some interesting places.
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I'll listen to anything authentic whether it's bluegrass or gospel or blues.
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Discovering Samuel Beckett in college was a big deal for me. I realized you could be very funny and very dark at the same time.
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Emily Dickinson seems rather tame because she pretty much uses the same meter every time. It's called 'common meter.' It's a line of four beats that's followed by a line of three beats.