Billy Collins

Poems, for me, begin as a social engagement. I want to establish a kind of sociability or even hospitality at the beginning of a poem. The title and the first few lines are a kind of welcome mat where I am inviting the reader inside.

I am increasingly attracted to restricting possibility in the poem by inflicting a form upon yourself. Once you impose some formal pattern on yourself, then the poem is pushing back. I think good poems are often the result of that kind of wrestling with the form.

The orthodox believers in God are divided into two camps, one of which maintains that the existence of God is as demonstrable as any mathematical proposition, while the other asserts that his existence is not demonstrable to the intellect.

Do whatever rejuvenates you. It might be a cooking class, cocktails with the girls, or just private time with the hubby. We all have our moments where we run out of steam because we've given everything we've got to everyone else. Whoever decided that was a good thing? It's not. Everyone needs to refuel.