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The Trouble with Poetry: And Other Poems
Billy Collins
Playfulness, spare elegance, and wit epitomize the poetry of Billy Collins. With his distinct voice and accessible language, America?s two-term Poet Laureate has opened the door to poetry for countless people for whom it might otherwise remain closed.
Random House
October 2005
112 pages
ISBN: 037550382X
Hardcover
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Fiction Poetry
Like the present book’s title, Collins’s poems are filled
with mischief, humor, and irony, “Poetry speaks to all
people, it is said, but here I would like to address / only
those in my own time zone”–but also with quiet observation,
intense wonder, and a reverence for the everyday: “The
birds are in their trees, / the toast is in the toaster, /
and the poets are at their windows. / They are at their
windows in every section of the tangerine of earth–the
Chinese poets looking up at the moon, / the American poets
gazing out / at the pink and blue ribbons of sunrise.” Through simple language, Collins shows that good poetry
doesn’t have to be obscure or incomprehensible, qualities
that are perhaps the real trouble with most “serious”
poetry: “By now, it should go without saying / that what
the oven is to the baker / and the berry-stained blouse to
the drycleaner / so the window is to the poet.” In this dazzling new collection, his first in three years,
Collins explores boyhood, jazz, love, the passage of time,
and, of course, writing–themes familiar to Collins’s fans
but made new here. Gorgeous, funny, and deeply empathetic,
Billy Collins’s poetry is a window through which we see our
lives as if for the first time.
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