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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

I’m very conscious of the fact that every line should have a cadence to it. It should contribute to the progress of the poem. And that the ending of the line is a way of turning the reader’s attention back into the interior of the poem.
BILLY COLLINS

Attention Conscious Poem Progress
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

Differences Difficult Poet Reading Thinking
Clarity is certainly a way toward disorientation because if you don’t start out – if the reader isn’t grounded, if the reader is disoriented in the beginning of the poem, then the reader can’t be led astray or disoriented later.
BILLY COLLINS

Astray Beginning Clarity Disorientated Poem Reader
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
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

Child Game Great Poetry Thing Under Way
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
So many names, there is barely room on the walls of the heart.
BILLY COLLINS

Heart Names Wall
It’s a good thing to get poetry off the shelves and more into public life.
BILLY COLLINS

Good Life Public Shelves Things
I felt at some point that I had nothing to lose, and [laughs] maybe I was wrong. I think, you know, there’s always these little autobiographical secrets behind things. I think I was really attacking my earlier self, and this kind of pretentious figure.
BILLY COLLINS

Laughing Self Thinking
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 COLLINS

Gaps Ignored Poet Themselves World
I thought originally when I was in school and I wanted to be a poet, I knew that poets seemed to be miserable.
BILLY COLLINS

Miserable Poet School
The mind can be trained to relieve itself on paper.
BILLY COLLINS

Mind Paper Relieve Trained
A return to his native Nigeria plunges Cole’s charming narrator into a tempest of chaos, contradiction, and kinship in a place both endearingly familiar and unnervingly strange. The result is a tale that engages and disturbs.
BILLY COLLINS

ContrAction Familiar Kinship Result Tempest
There’s a lot of unconscious activity that goes on I think in the composition of a poem.
BILLY COLLINS

Goes On Thinking Unconscious
I thought I would be completely content if I was recognized at some later point in my life as a third-rate Wallace Stevens.
BILLY COLLINS

Life People Poet Popular Recognized Thought
Usually the poems are written in one sitting. There’s always a groping towards some satisfying ending. But I’d say the hardest part is not writing. Once the writing starts, it’s too pleasurable to think of it as a difficulty.
BILLY COLLINS

Once Pleasurable Sitting Thinking Writing

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.

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Popular Authors

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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