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  • Billy Collins Quote - The poem is not, as someone put it, deflective of entry. But the real question is, ‘What happens to the reader once he or she gets inside the poem?’
  • Billy Collins Quote - The poem is not, as someone put it, deflective of entry. But the real question is, ‘What happens to the reader once he or she gets inside the poem?’
  • Billy Collins Quote - The poem is not, as someone put it, deflective of entry. But the real question is, ‘What happens to the reader once he or she gets inside the poem?’
  • Billy Collins Quote - The poem is not, as someone put it, deflective of entry. But the real question is, ‘What happens to the reader once he or she gets inside the poem?’
  • Billy Collins Quote - The poem is not, as someone put it, deflective of entry. But the real question is, ‘What happens to the reader once he or she gets inside the poem?’
  • Billy Collins Quote - The poem is not, as someone put it, deflective of entry. But the real question is, ‘What happens to the reader once he or she gets inside the poem?’
  1. black
  2. grey
  3. blue
  4. red
  5. brown
  6. white

The poem is not, as someone put it, deflective of entry. But the real question is, ‘What happens to the reader once he or she gets inside the poem?’

Billy Collins

More Billy Collins Quotes

  • Share on Facebook Tweet this! Share on LinkedIn Share on Whatsapp Share on Telegram Billy Collins Quote - That’s the real question for me, is getting the reader into the poem and then taking the reader somewhere, because I think of poetry as a kind of form of travel writing. Download This Image

    That’s the real question for me, is getting the reader into the poem and then taking the reader somewhere, because I think of poetry as a kind of form of travel writing.

    BILLY COLLINS
  • Share on Facebook Tweet this! Share on LinkedIn Share on Whatsapp Share on Telegram Billy Collins Quote - I write two lines or three lines. I will immediately stop and turn into a reader instead of a writer, and I’ll read those lines as if I had never seen them before and as if I had never written them.

    I write two lines or three lines. I will immediately stop and turn into a reader instead of a writer, and I’ll read those lines as if I had never seen them before and as if I had never written them.

    BILLY COLLINS
  • Share on Facebook Tweet this! Share on LinkedIn Share on Whatsapp Share on Telegram Billy Collins Quote - I was an only child, a very late child, born to parents who were both 39 at the time, which was very late back then. That kind of confirmed my sense of being the center of the universe, which I guess every child feels – children and poets both tend to feel.

    I was an only child, a very late child, born to parents who were both 39 at the time, which was very late back then. That kind of confirmed my sense of being the center of the universe, which I guess every child feels – children and poets both tend to feel.

    BILLY COLLINS
  • Share on Facebook Tweet this! Share on LinkedIn Share on Whatsapp Share on Telegram Billy Collins Quote - Some difficulty is warranted and other difficulty I think is gratuitous. And I think I can tell the difference. There are certainly very difficult poets that I really enjoy reading.

    Some difficulty is warranted and other difficulty I think is gratuitous. And I think I can tell the difference. There are certainly very difficult poets that I really enjoy reading.

    BILLY COLLINS
  • Share on Facebook Tweet this! Share on LinkedIn Share on Whatsapp Share on Telegram Billy Collins Quote - Particularly when I thought of myself as a Wallace Stevens acolyte, I wrote very difficult poetry and I was really guilty of not knowing what I was talking about. I was going for a kind of clever verbal effect. I was trying to sound linguistically or verbally interesting.

    Particularly when I thought of myself as a Wallace Stevens acolyte, I wrote very difficult poetry and I was really guilty of not knowing what I was talking about. I was going for a kind of clever verbal effect. I was trying to sound linguistically or verbally interesting.

    BILLY COLLINS
  • Share on Facebook Tweet this! Share on LinkedIn Share on Whatsapp Share on Telegram Billy Collins Quote - I find it strange that – at least in my take on it – the people who are the most alarmed about the dire times we live in are the ones who seem to be humorless, in their taste for poetry anyway. Download This Image

    I find it strange that – at least in my take on it – the people who are the most alarmed about the dire times we live in are the ones who seem to be humorless, in their taste for poetry anyway.

    BILLY COLLINS
  • Share on Facebook Tweet this! Share on LinkedIn Share on Whatsapp Share on Telegram Billy Collins Quote - This love for everyday things, part natural from the wide eye of Infancy, part a literary calculation

    This love for everyday things, part natural from the wide eye of Infancy, part a literary calculation

    BILLY COLLINS
  • Share on Facebook Tweet this! Share on LinkedIn Share on Whatsapp Share on Telegram Billy Collins Quote - Another trouble with poetry – and I’m gonna stop the list at two – is the presence of presumptuousness in poetry. Download This Image

    Another trouble with poetry – and I’m gonna stop the list at two – is the presence of presumptuousness in poetry.

    BILLY COLLINS
  • Share on Facebook Tweet this! Share on LinkedIn Share on Whatsapp Share on Telegram Billy Collins Quote - Introduction To Poetry I ask them to take a poem and hold it up to the light like a color slide or press an ear against its hive. I say drop a mouse into a poem and watch him probe his way out, or walk inside the poem’s room and feel the walls for a light switch. Download This Image

    Introduction To Poetry I ask them to take a poem and hold it up to the light like a color slide or press an ear against its hive. I say drop a mouse into a poem and watch him probe his way out, or walk inside the poem’s room and feel the walls for a light switch.

    BILLY COLLINS
  • Share on Facebook Tweet this! Share on LinkedIn Share on Whatsapp Share on Telegram Billy Collins Quote - But I think you could also put it a different way. You, quote, find your voice, unquote, when you are able to invent this one character who resembles you, obviously, and probably is more like you than anyone else on earth, but is not the equivalent to you.

    But I think you could also put it a different way. You, quote, find your voice, unquote, when you are able to invent this one character who resembles you, obviously, and probably is more like you than anyone else on earth, but is not the equivalent to you.

    BILLY COLLINS
  • Share on Facebook Tweet this! Share on LinkedIn Share on Whatsapp Share on Telegram Billy Collins Quote - Death is what makes life fun.

    Death is what makes life fun.

    BILLY COLLINS
  • Share on Facebook Tweet this! Share on LinkedIn Share on Whatsapp Share on Telegram Billy Collins Quote - I hope the poem, as it goes on, gets more complicated, a little more demanding, a little more ambiguous or speculative, so that we’re drifting away from the casual beginning of the poem into something a little more serious.

    I hope the poem, as it goes on, gets more complicated, a little more demanding, a little more ambiguous or speculative, so that we’re drifting away from the casual beginning of the poem into something a little more serious.

    BILLY COLLINS
  • Share on Facebook Tweet this! Share on LinkedIn Share on Whatsapp Share on Telegram Billy Collins Quote - It seems only yesterday I used to believe there was nothing under my skin but light. If you cut me I could shine.

    It seems only yesterday I used to believe there was nothing under my skin but light. If you cut me I could shine.

    BILLY COLLINS
  • Share on Facebook Tweet this! Share on LinkedIn Share on Whatsapp Share on Telegram Billy Collins Quote - Robert Frost really started this whole thing rolling. He was, I believe, the first poet who started going to colleges. Before that, poets didn’t give public readings very often, certainly not – there was no circuit of schools.

    Robert Frost really started this whole thing rolling. He was, I believe, the first poet who started going to colleges. Before that, poets didn’t give public readings very often, certainly not – there was no circuit of schools.

    BILLY COLLINS
  • Share on Facebook Tweet this! Share on LinkedIn Share on Whatsapp Share on Telegram Billy Collins Quote - When I began to dare to be clear, because I think clarity is the real risk in poetry because you are exposed. You’re out in the open field. You’re actually saying things that are comprehensible, and it’s easy to criticize something you can understand.

    When I began to dare to be clear, because I think clarity is the real risk in poetry because you are exposed. You’re out in the open field. You’re actually saying things that are comprehensible, and it’s easy to criticize something you can understand.

    BILLY COLLINS
  • Share on Facebook Tweet this! Share on LinkedIn Share on Whatsapp Share on Telegram Billy Collins Quote - The great thing about the game of poetry is that it’s always your turn – I guess that goes back to my being an only child. So once it’s under way, there is a sense of flow.

    The great thing about the game of poetry is that it’s always your turn – I guess that goes back to my being an only child. So once it’s under way, there is a sense of flow.

    BILLY COLLINS