Billy Collins Quotes
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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 think my poems are slightly underrated by the word 'accessible.'
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I really have a distaste for poets who announce themselves at 50 yards; you know, here he comes, you know, with the beret and the cane and the cape and the whatever - whatever mishegas is part of the outfit there.
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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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I have my Poetry 180 project, which I've made my main project. We encourage high schools, because that's really where, for most people, poetry dies off and gets buried under other adolescent pursuits.
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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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When I write, I'm not trying to be funny. It's the way I look at the world.
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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.
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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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I'm pretty much all for poetry in public places - poetry on buses, poetry on subways, on billboards, on cereal boxes.
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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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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 don't write for an auditorium full of people. I don't write for the microphone; I write for the page.
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I just reached the point where plot-driven novels don't hold my interest because I don't care about the fate of characters anymore - whether Emily marries Tom or not, that kind of thing.