Listeners are kind of ambushed… if a poem just happens to be said when they’re listening to the radio. The listener doesn’t have time to deploy what I call their ‘poetry deflector shields’ that were installed in high school – there’s little time to resist the poem.
BILLY COLLINS
BILLY COLLINS
Billy Collins on listening
Billy Collins76 quotes“Listeners are kind of ambushed… if a poem just happens to be said when they’re listening to the radio. The listener doesn’t have time to deploy what I call their ‘poetry deflector shields’ that were installed in high school – there’s little time to resist the poem.”
More from Billy Collins
Another trouble with poetry – and I’m gonna stop the list at two – is the presence of presumptuousness in poetry.
Billy CollinsBilly Collins There are just long gaps where I can’t find a point of insertion, I can’t find a good opening line.
Billy CollinsBilly Collins As soon as I start to write I’m very aware, I’m trying to be aware that a reader just might well pick up this poem, a stranger. So when I’m writing – and I think that this is important for all writers – I’m trying to be a writer and a reader back and forth.
Billy CollinsBilly Collins I write with a Uni-Ball Onyx Micropoint on nine-by-seven bound notebooks made by a Canadian company called Blueline. After I do a few drafts, I type up the poem on a Macintosh G3 and then send it out the door.
Billy CollinsBilly Collins 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 CollinsBilly Collins Form is any aspect of a poem that encourages it to stay whole and not drift off into chaos.
Billy CollinsBilly Collins I can’t picture myself starting out aiming to do anything or having much of an agenda.I think in writing a poem, I’m making some tonal adjustments, and it took me a long time to allow anything like fun into my poetry.
Billy CollinsBilly Collins I think my work has to do with a sense that we are attempting, all the time, to create a logical, rational path through the day. To the left and right there are an amazing set of distractions that we usually can’t afford to follow. But the poet is willing to stop anywhere.
Billy CollinsBilly Collins The really authentic thing about humor is that anyone can pretend to be serious. Anyone who’s ever had a job – in fact, we’re pretending to be serious now, more or less.
Billy CollinsBilly Collins But my heart is always propped up in a field on its tripod, ready for the next arrow.
Billy CollinsBilly Collins It’s time to float on the waters of the night. Time to wrap my arms around this book and press it to my chest, life preserver in a seat of unremarkable men and women anonymous faces on the street, a hundred thousand unalphabitized things a million forgotten hours.
Billy CollinsBilly Collins I always think W.S. Merwin’s poems will last of anyone writing today. If I had to bet on posterity I would bet Merwin.
Billy CollinsBilly Collins The literary world is so full of pretension, and there’s such an enormous gap between how seriously poets take themselves and how widely they’re ignored by everybody else.
Billy CollinsBilly Collins Every Day Is for the Thief is a vivid, episodic evocation of the truism that you can’t go home again; but that doesn’t mean you’re not free to try.
Billy CollinsBilly Collins No one here likes a wet dog.
Billy CollinsBilly Collins This love for everyday things, part natural from the wide eye of Infancy, part a literary calculation
Billy CollinsBilly Collins
Original quotes
From our community writers
Caught inside my mind trapped between its horrid lines losing precious time.
Carmen AmadosCarmen Amados Some women will have you look at life differently.
Eleni SophiaEleni Sophia The biggest reward often require the largest risks.
Nicole BrownNicole Brown Being with you is familiar, like playing guitar after some time; the theory is there but my fingers have forgotten the chords.
AstaAsta Late-night conservations, Breathtaking memories, and an endless sky full of unseen dazzling stars. That’s how I want to remember us.
AurthurAurthur Nothing is more terrifying than falling in love.
Helena DegnHelena Degn People who cannot see through souls will keep searching for beauty in faces and will never find it.
Shilpa GoelShilpa Goel There is someone out there waiting to love you in all the ways you deserve.
Ashley PrzywolskiAshley Przywolski
Meet the writers
More on listening
Boomerang’ is all about coming back from the hate and not listening to the hate. It really tells a message.
JoJo SiwaJoJo Siwa I wanted to convey the message of how I do what I want and how I run my own business, and I’m a woman in charge. I want all of my fans to know that that’s possible and feel empowered when they listen to my music.
Madison BeerMadison Beer Most secrets should never be told, but especially those that are more menacing to the listener than to the teller.
Truman CapoteTruman Capote I listen to different artists. I open my mind to different artists.
Lil DurkLil Durk An appreciative listener is always stimulating.
Agatha ChristieAgatha Christie I grew up listening to a lot of Ray Charles and ’60s rock, thanks to my father, and then my brothers got me in to KISS and whatnot, so I guess that’s where I got my first taste for music.
AviciiAvicii Women are attracted to silent men. They believe they are listening.
Thomas HardyThomas Hardy When it comes to electronic music, I started listening to a lot of Daft Punk, way before I knew what house music was, and then progressed into a lot of Steve Angello, Eric Prydz, Axwell, Sebastian Ingrosso, and Laidback Luke.
AviciiAvicii