black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

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 Collins

The name of the author is the first to go followed obediently by the title, the plot, the heartbreaking conclusion,
BILLY COLLINS

Conclusion Fishing Memories Novel Phones
I saw him looking up at her and what she was doing the way the eyes of saints are painted when they are looking up at God when he is doing something remarkable, something that identifies him as God.
BILLY COLLINS

God Looking Remarkable Saint Something
In the process of simplifying oneself, one often discovers the thing called voice.
BILLY COLLINS

Oneself Process Voice
You’ll find i-poetry, you’ll find that you can download poetry, that you can stuff your i-pod with recorded poetry. So just to answer the question that way, I think that poetry is gonna catch up with that technology quite soon.
BILLY COLLINS

Answer Technology Thinking
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 COLLINS

Finding Yourself Thinking Writing
I don’t know if anyone’s reading it, but poets are still flying around the country going from lectern to lectern.That circuitry has become very well-established.
BILLY COLLINS

Anyone Country Established Going Lectern
While the novelist is banging on his typewriter, the poet is watching a fly in the windowpane.
BILLY COLLINS

Novelists Poet Typewriters
It is as if one by one, the memories you used to harbor decided to retire to the Southern Hemisphere of the brain.
BILLY COLLINS

Brain Memories Southern
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

Character Earth Eqiuipvalent Resembles Voice
I see the progress typical in some of my poems as starting with something simple and moving into something more demanding. This is certainly the pattern of weird poetry.
BILLY COLLINS

Moving Progress Simple
I was able to read poets that were – allowed me to be humorous without being silly.
BILLY COLLINS

Able Humorous Silly
I stared up at the ebbing quarter moon and the stars scattered like a handful of salt across the faraway sky.
BILLY COLLINS

Across Faraway Moon Sky Stars
Now I would say at any given moment in American life, there are probably 45 poets in airplanes vectoring across the country heading towards…
BILLY COLLINS

Across Airplane Country Reading Towards
But my heart is always propped up in a field on its tripod, ready for the next arrow.
BILLY COLLINS

Arrows Fields Heart
Humor, for me, is really a gate of departure. Its a way of enticing a reader into a poem so that less funny things can take place later. It really is not an end in itself, but a means to an end.
BILLY COLLINS

Departure Funny Mean Things
The entire novel which suddenly becomes one you have never read, never even heard of, as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain, to a little fishing village where there are no phones.
BILLY COLLINS

Decided Heard Hemisphere Memories Southern Suddenly

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Billy Collins Quotes