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1. black
2. grey
3. blue
4. red
5. brown
6. white

So many names, there is barely room on the walls of the heart.

Billy Collins

Related Topics

HeartNamesWall

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More Billy Collins Quotes

• 

  I was a pretty happy kid, I had to fake it. I had to get into this miserable character before I wrote poems.

  BILLY COLLINS
  CharacterHappy KidKids
• 

  When I wrote I took on the role of the despondent and difficult to understand person. Whereas in life, I was easy to understand, to the point of being simple-minded maybe.

  BILLY COLLINS
  EasyPersonRolesSimpleUnderstand
• 

  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
  LaughingSelfThinking
• 

  I knew that poets seemed to be miserable.

  BILLY COLLINS
  MiserablePoetSeemed
• 

  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
  BelieveCuttingYesterday
• 

  I was able to read poets that were – allowed me to be humorous without being silly.

  BILLY COLLINS
  AbleHumorousSilly
• 

  I see woefully obscure poetry as simply a kind of verbal rudeness.

  BILLY COLLINS
  KindObscureRudeness
• 

  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
  MeanNamesWall
• 

  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
  ComprehensibleExposedRealRiskSayingThinking
• 

  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
  GodLookingRemarkableSaintSomething
• 

  I had a sense, I guess, from just reading a lot of poetry of how a poem would start and how it would end but really I didn’t know what I was doing. It had very little connection to my life.

  BILLY COLLINS
  ConnectingInterestingPoemPoetrySense
• 

  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
  AstrayBeginningClarityDisorientatedPoemReader
• 

  There are just long gaps where I can’t find a point of insertion, I can’t find a good opening line.

  BILLY COLLINS
  AirFallInsertionOpenTimeWriting
• 

  I think my poems are slightly underrated by the word accessible.

  BILLY COLLINS
  AccessiblePoemsThinkingUnderrated
• 

  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 COLLINS
  FunThinkingWriting
• 

  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
  ChildGameGreatPoetryThingUnderWay