BCBilly Collins

57 collected words

Billy Collins

Born 1941 AD; death year unknown

Name supplied in the contributor-provided quotation collection. Basic attribution label; identity, lifetime and quotation authenticity have not been independently verified.

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Quotations and sayings

01c. 1941 AD

I don't think anybody reads a book of poetry front to back. Editors and reviewers only. I don't think anybody else does.

Billy Collins / quote

02c. 1941 AD

When I was a young man, I understood that poetry was two things - it was difficult to understand, but you could understand that the poet was miserable. So for a while there, I wrote poems that were hard to understand, even by me, but gave off whiffs of misery.

Billy Collins / quote

03c. 1941 AD

When I became poet laureate, I was in a slightly uncomfortable position because I think a lot of poetry isn't worth reading.

Billy Collins / quote

04c. 1941 AD

For most Americans, poetry plays no role in their everyday lives. But also for most Americans, contemporary painting or jazz or sculpture play no role either. I'm not saying poetry is singled out as a special thing to ignore.

Billy Collins / quote

05c. 1941 AD

People think of poetry as a school subject... Poetry is very frustrating to students because they don't have a taste for ambiguity, for one thing. That gives them a poetry hangover.

Billy Collins / quote

06c. 1941 AD

My persona is less miserable than a lot of contemporary poetry speakers are.

Billy Collins / quote

07c. 1941 AD

I'm all for poetry catching up with technology, and just as there are iTunes, I think we should have iPoems. I mean, people should be able to walk around with their earbuds in and listening to poems on their iPod.

Billy Collins / quote

08c. 1941 AD

I find a lot of poetry very disappointing, but I do have poets that I go back to. One book of poetry that I'd like to mention is 'The Exchange' by Sophie Cabot Black. Her poems are difficult without being too difficult.

Billy Collins / quote

09c. 1941 AD

Some honor Cummings as the granddaddy of all American innovators in poetry and ascribe to him a diverse progeny that includes virtually any poet who considers the page a field and allows silence to be part of poetry's expressiveness.

Billy Collins / quote