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Summary: Everything I Imagined
Review: Once again, Collins surprises, me but not so much to the point in which is poetry moves me as far from my seat. Naturally we are entitled to bring free verse to the page, but with the meter in which he used which is to date back to the 19th century, which is not entirley erie of the fact that Collins is exceptional at it.
If I were to read and re-read, all and in between every nature of every word, and then be moved, not to the left brain, but to the right, and then in between every cranny, then I would most likely bow my head to Collins, and no as everyone esle why he is considered Poet Laurette
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Summary: Finally, a poetry book for the rest of us
Review: I love this book because it expects absolutely nothing of the reader. This is easy-reading, easy-listening poetry. You can read the poems during commercials, and, best yet, you don't have to read them two or three times to get the point. Even better, you can be multi-tasking while reading the poems and not miss a thing! Everything is as plain as the nose on your face. The words are simple, the themes are simple--if only we'd been assigned THIS back in Poetry 101, we'd have all aced the classes, and just THINK what are QPAs would have been. I hope Jorie Graham and Adrienne Rich and their ilk are listening up! Billy Collins is the man!
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Summary: No better poet to keep in your pocket
Review: John Adams admonished his son JQ Adams to keep a poet in his pocket. I can think of no better poet to keep in your pcket. Billy's poems aer fresh, funny, and delicious to roll aorund in your mouth. I bring it out at every family occasion and read to the relatives who all guffaw. I love this book.
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Summary: Wise, witty and graceful poetry
Review: I adore Billy Collins. He has a unique voice, a way of putting things that is very pleasing. His poetry shows humor, wit, and intelligence, not to mention talent. I have never cared for "epic" poetry, and many poems leave me mildly disappointed because they seem to be trying too hard or are hard to relate to personally for me. However, Collins' poems seem to flow naturally with one's stream of conciousness. His work has rekindled my interest in this art form.
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Summary: Quirky poetry.
Review: Billy Collins is an English professor at Lehman College of the City University of New York, and a visiting writer at Sarah Lawrence College. He is also the 2001-2002 Poet Laureate of the United States. This 96-poem collection is the definitive volume of Billy Collins' work to date. It includes selected poetry from his four previous books, THE APPLE THAT ASTONISHED PARIS, QUESTIONS ABOUT ANGELS, THE ART OF DROWNING, and PICNIC, LIGHTNING (1988-1998), together with twenty new poems. It is a captivating collection of poetry that I enjoyed reading cover to cover.Quirky. Wry. Amazing. Fun. Witty. Easy. These are some of the words that describe Collins' poetry. He has a knack for revealing the extraordinary in the ordinary. In "Questions About Angels," he writes, "Do they fly through God's body and come out singing?/ Do they swing like children from the hinges/ of the spirit world saying their names backwards and forwards?/ Do they sit alone in gardens changing colors?" (p. 24). In "The Dead," he observes, "The dead are always looking down on us, they say,/ while we are putting on our shoes or making a sandwich,/ They are looking down through the glass-bottom boats of heaven/ as they row themselves slowly through eternity" (p. 33). "Each one is a gift, no doubt," he writes in "Days," "mysteriously placed in your waking hand/ or set upon your forehead/ moments before you open your eyes" (p. 57). In one of my favorite Collins' poems, "Dharma," he writes, "The way the dog trots out the front door/ every morning/ without a hat or an umbrella/ without any money/ or the keys to her doghouse/ never fails to fill the saucer of my heart/ with milky admiration" (p. 137). Other poems here contemplate insomnia (pp. 10; 142), Collins' "best cigarette" (p. 55), marginalia (p. 94), shovelling snow with Buddha (p. 103), perusing a Victoria's Secret catalog (p. 109), and undressing Emily Dickinson (p. 119). Those readers who appreciate good wine, good books, and good jazz will discover a kindred spirit in Billy Collins. Perhaps Collins describes the effect of reading his poetry best in "Picnic, Lightning": "It is possible to be struck by a meteor/ or a single-engine plane/ while reading in a chair at home" (p. 98). G. Merritt
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Summary: Wonderful poetry for people ambivalent about poety.
Review: I'm one of those readers who finds most poetry to be maddenly opaque, filled with mostly ambiguous and meaningless words. Dante's Inferno is a masterpiece, but he gave us something to sink our teeth into. Some of Robert Frost's poems are wonderful. But most poetry leaves me frustrated and unfulfilled. I don't blame the poets or the poems--they just don't do it for me. Give me some good, meaty prose, something with a real plot and strong sinewy words to chew on, and I'm a happy reader. Then someone suggested I give Billy Collins a try, so I invested $20+ on his recent collection entitled "Sailing Around the Room." (mostly poems from his prior collections, but with twenty or so new ones). What can I say? In the two days since I bought this volume, I've read each of the poems several times. Collins is humorous, insightful, and even his ambiguities are delicious. But beneath the humor lies some deep insights into humanity, a sense of sadness amid our passage through life (the last lines in "November" are heartbreaking). Many of his poems are wry commentaries on the creative process. If you've ever owned a dog, his "Dharma" is a revelation, you'll gain a new appreciation for snow from reading "Snow" or "Snow Day," you'll never look at someone listening to a disc player the same way after you've read "Man Listening to Disc," and you'll never pick up a Victoria's Secret catalog again without examining it through the humorous eyes of "Victoria's Secret." I loved this volume and I'll read it over and over. It's everything I have described above, but above all things, it's wise. Collins has enough of life under his belt to understand its humor, its tragedy, its joy, and its rhythms. And he has the voice to make it all real for the reader. Even if you hate poetry, buy this book.
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Summary: Buy Collins' other books.
Review: I like Collins' poetry, but this particular book has a bad history. The New York Times abused their position by unfairly attacking Collins' previous publisher, Pitt Press, for asking Random House to delay publication of this book by one year. Random House eventually agreed, but only after the New York Times had shown themselves to be willing to ignore the facts and put unfair pressure on a small publisher. My suggestion is, buy Collins' earlier books. You'll get all his previous poems, and you'll have the satisfaction of helping a small press that was a victim of unethical journalism.
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Summary: So many goodies in one goody book...
Review: Mr. Collins' new book is excellent, it contains some of his best poems from his past books and some new poems destined to become all time favorites.
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Summary: If I Could Write Poetry...
Review: ...I would write like Billy Collins. Unfortunately, I can't, and there aren't many others who can either. Collins is just as good as he is supposed to be. His poems are wry glimpses at the seemingly mundane world around him, and through his poetry, he locates the humor and the wisdom and the beauty to be found therein. His poems are in turn witty and shocking and poignant. As the back of the cover says, he "begins with the everyday and ends in the infinite." That's just about right. He's got that same gift that poets like Emily Dickinson (the subject of one of his best poems) and Robert Frost had. He can look at the everyday and see the sublime.
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Summary: The People's Poet
Review: At his best, Billy Collins can be funny and clever and unexpected. I have yet to see him other than at his best. This collection offers an excellent selection of Collins's previously published poetry as well as some new ones.
Collins has a way of turning the simple and mundane into the wildly humorous and devastatingly poignant. His accessible style is deceptively simple and, judging by some of the other reviews of the book, a bit off-putting to those I imagine in my head as "those of lesser imagination." Collins's poetry works for me in its simplicity and beauty. But, it's not like I am waiting breathlessly for Collins's next book to be released or for his next appearance on National Public Radio.
It's not like that. Not exactly.
Jeremy W. Forstadt
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