Collins, Billy 2001
With a basin of warm water and a towel
I am shaving my father
late on a summer afternoon
as he sits in a chair in blue striped pajamas
– Billy Collins, “The Stare”
Broadside of “The Stare” by Billy Collins
They say you can jinx a poem
if you talk about it before it is done.
If you let it out too early, they warn,
your poem will fly away,
and this time they are absolutely right.
– Billy Collins, “Madmen”
Listen to Billy Collins’ 2001 Poetry Center reading:
One bright morning in a restaurant in Chicago
as I waited for my eggs and toast,
I opened the Tribune only to discover
that I was the same age as Cheerios.
– Billy Collins, “Cheerios”
Audio recording of the Poetry Center Reading Series featuring Billy Collins, Andrei Codrescu, Ron Padgett, Lucille Clifton, Mark Perlberg, Li-Young Lee, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Anne Waldman, Yusuf Komunyakaa, Lisel Mueller, Ted Kooser, Paul Carroll, Jorie Graham, and Paul Hoover.
Buy this audio recording featuring Billy Collins⇒
I thought about his death for so many hours,
tangled there in the wires of the night,
that it came to have a body and dimensions,
more than a voice shaking over the telephone
or the black obituary boldface of name and dates.
– Billy Collins, “The Wires of the Night”
Watch Billy Collins’s TED Talk with animations of his poetry:
