Rating: 
Summary: A Study in Being
Review: "I like writing about where I am,
where I happen to be sitting,
The humidity or the clouds,
The scene outside the window-
A pink tree in bloom,
A neighbor walking his small, nervous dog."Billy Collins seems to have moments of brilliance within poems discussing ordinary aspects of everyday living. Is this part of his charm? I think for someone to find beauty in the ordinary, you have to have a vivid imagination and transform the simple into the magnificent. Collins was reappointed to the post of U.S. Poet Laureate in the summer of 2002. He travels throughout the country for readings, lectures and is well loved by his audiences. While some reviewers don't feel his poetry has beauty, I think the beauty is when you connect with a specific poem. In this book, I had to read all the way to page 39 before anything really "struck" me as amazing. There is a cute poem about breakfast, a story of fishing and then on page 17 I found: "no matter what the size the aquarium of one's learning, another colored pebble can always be dropped in." I think what I like is the conversational style. Billy seems to mostly be talking to the reader or explaining a situation that he enjoyed. There is a casual elegance in his poems. He invites you to journey with him through the poems, although at times Collins throws in a highly imaginative sentence or an entire poem that throws you for an intellectual loop. Billy Collins vocabulary is stunning all on its own. The way he blends the words into images and colors is more than impressive. In "Journal" you can imagine yourself walking in the dark, downstairs in a robe and trying to compose an entry in a journal. Any writer knows, you can hardly go to sleep when thoughts are pouring out of your mind and begging to be dripped through a pen onto a new page. My favorite poem in this book was: "I Go Back to the House for a Book" because anyone who loves reading can relate to being stranded without a book. Here one part of himself goes back to the house while another part races off into the world. He plays with a similar idea in "The Night House," where his body, heart, mind and soul go to different areas of the house. "Moon" is rather interesting. Here, Collins speaks of our inner child and how even if we don't have a child, we can care for our inner child. I have to laugh when I read "Paradelle for Susan," because even the poem sounds nervous. Collins repeats most of the lines. Apparently a Paradelle is not that easy to write and it might be a fun challenge to try to write your own poem in this "fixed form." Reading the poems in "Picnic, Lightning" might make you feel slightly poetic yourself. Pittsburgh Press has issued special limited edition hardcovers of three of Billy Collins' books: Questions about Angels, The Art of Drowning, and Picnic, Lightning. I'm thinking I need to find an autographed copy of "Questions about Angels." If you are just starting to read poems by Billy Collins, I'd start with "Questions about Angels."
Rating: 
Summary: Humorously Engaging Poetry
Review: All Billy Collins needs is an everyday event and he masterfully creates a beautiful, humorous, inviting scene that anyone would excite anyone. How could you not want to chop parsley while listening to jazz, shovel snow with Buddah, or flip through a Victoria's Secret catalog when he makes it all sound so exotic and wonderful. I am not a huge fan of poetry and I seldom take the time to analyze it deeply, but Collins is the finest and most interesting contemporary poet I know of and would highly recommend his poetry to anyone who likes a good laugh, creative use of language, and something to make them think. This is an excellent collection I am glad was recommended to me and I would certainly urge everyone I know to get at least a taste of Collins.
Rating:
Summary: A window into all our lives
Review: Billy Collin's latest collection, "Picnic, Lightning" is a smart, funny, moving glimpse into everything from a Victoria's Secret catalog ("Victoria's Secret") to an encyclopedia ("What I Learned Today"), personal relationships ("Paradelle for Susan," which introduced me to a whole new poetic form) to the joy of jazz ("I Chop Parsley...", "Jazz and Nature"). Casual in tone, Collins' poems don't make the reader struggle with poetic diction or unfamiliar vocabulary. Like quiet conversation in a coffee house, they offer a friendly intimacy in their simplicity of subject, and yet challenge the reader with the unexpected leaps Collins makes in his imagery and ideas. "I Chop Parsley..." for example, starts out as a narrative about preparing a meal, becomes a meditation on jazz and a nursery rhyme, and all the while is an examination of how we try to hide our own emotional vulnerability even from ourselves. This poem (one of my favorites in the book) is a wonderful illustration of how willing Collins is to usher his readers into his interior world, observed with a wry self-knowledge and a refreshing gentleness. This is a collection written for readers in the late 20th century who value honesty, humor, razor-sharp observation, and hard-earned wisdom. I couldn't recommend it more highly.
Rating:
Summary: Light-lit Vignettes
Review: Billy Collins fulfills Wordsworth's image of "spots of time" captured and later reflected upon. Though Collins's messages and meanings are subtler than Wordsworth's, Collins connects with feelings and moments common to many of us. His inspiration from daily life, from which he draws Keillor-esque observations, quenched my fears that as a writer, I must draw from exotic experiences uncommon to my readers. A peaceful read at Saturday breakfast.
Rating:
Summary: Picnic Lightning is BRILLIANT! FUNNY!
Review: Billy Collins has a conversational style that has a simple veneer, but each image carries weight. In one poem, he is reciting captions from the Victoria's Secret catalog, being the blue collar man reacting. Then later, musing about marks and spots on the margins of a book's pages. Those images are ethereal. It was an appropriate choice that he was named Poet Laureate of the United States. He speaks in a contemporary way, in a jargon that on one hand might raise the hackles of your neck thinking it's just more pap - but then - with a word or a twist he blows an image our way to tell us his vision.
Rating:
Summary: This is Fabulous Poetry!
Review: Billy Collins is the wittiest poet around. Period. His work, as John Updike says, is more serious than it seems. Collins crowds his poems with the world of material things, and unflinchingly celebrates the earth. His poems are of humanity, and the earth finally. And, all the poems in this book radiate like a sun, in different seasons, at different times of night and day, and nourish the earth, and us. "Marginalia" is a beautiful poem about our need to connect to one another, evidenced by reading what people have written in the margins of library books. Very moving. "Japan" is a masterpiece poem that is haikuesque in style, but is not haiku, and is truly exquisite in the compression and power it uses to render its passion in tercets .... "The Death of The Hat" is a fine poem that begins by musing over the fact that modern men no longer wear hats ... and ends by memorializing the speaker's father ... a great poem! These poems are absolutely fabulous! All of them are great. This is GREAT poetry from a GREAT poet, who as of a couple weeks ago, has become our nation's Poet Laureate. I recommend this book to everybody.
Rating:
Summary: There isn't anyone who couldn't benifit from Collins writing
Review: First off, I would recomend this collection for anyone. If you love poetry you will be refreshed by the Collins' cunning way with words and if you do not then you may find that opinion changing fairly quickly. I first started reading Collins' when it was recomended to me by my best friend, who told me my works reminded me of his. Since then I jump at any chance to read his works and have found that when I begin to feel down reading Collins' poetry picks me right up. The poems themselves are witty, charming and humorus, also deep in an interesting manner. I've never read poems so fantastic. They are light and easy to read. I am a freshman in high school as I write this. People of all ages can enjoy and cherish this fantastic book. If you only read one collection of poetry for the remainder of your life it should be by Billy Collins!
Rating:
Summary: Favorite collection of my favorite poet
Review: How does one "review" something like poetry ... the most subjective of all the arts? By giving a subjective opinion, and here is mine: I've been a fan of Collins ever since I read his brilliantly metaphoric poem "Schoolsville." With every publication, I've enjoyed his work more and more. Collins is now my favorite poet, and PICNIC, LIGHNING is my favorite collection of poetry to date. I never tire of reading his rich and clever words. I personally like contemporary "conversational" style poetry, especially when it is infused with startling metaphors, subtle assonance, and rhythmic phrasing, as Collins' work is. I particularly appreciate his many references to writing and words, as in "Marginalia," and his poems that play tricks with time and space, such as "Looking West." But the piece de resistance in this volume is "Taking Off Emily Dickinson's Clothes" ... the title enticing, the words enthralling. I'm so glad I ordered a hardback copy of this book while it was available.
Rating:
Summary: good
Review: I don't know what else to say about Billy Collins that I haven't said elsewhere. He's a remarkable poet, who does his thing and does it well. Picnic, Lightning is a pretty solid collection of poems, though if you have Collins's selected poems there's no need to pick this one up. Those that weren't included in the selected aren't very good, with the exception of "I Go Back to the House For a Book," which I think is a marvelous poem and should have been included in the selected poems.
Rating:
Summary: Searching for a poet -- Found a poet!
Review: I've been searching for a poet for quite a while, a poet who could move me the way only Roethke could up to now. In Billy Collins I have found one. Imagine my amazement when I received my copy of Picnic, Lightning and saw on the back cover the identical sentiment coming from John Updike, although he says it much better than I could. "... Collins writes lovely poems--lovely in a way almost nobody since Roethke's are. Limpid, gently and consistently startling, more serious than they seem..." Collins has his own voice, and a wonderful voice it is, but the feelings he generates in me are familiar--they're what I get from reading Roethke's Far Field and his other later works. My favorites in this beautiful collection are Moon, My Life and Aristotle. Buy it, give it as a gift, enjoy it.
And to Mr Collins, please keep writing. Updike no doubt wants you to, and so do I.
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