I'm a great believer in poetry out of the classroom, in public places, on subways, trains, on cocktail napkins. I'd rather have my poems on the subway than around the seminar table at an MFA program. Billy Collins believerclassroomcocktail Change image and share on social
Poetry is my cheap means of transportation. By the end of the poem the reader should be in a different place from where he started. I would like him to be slightly disoriented at the end, like I drove him outside of town at night and dropped him off in a cornfield. Billy Collins cheapcornfielddisorient share on social
Often people, when they're confronted with a poem, it's like someone who keep saying 'what is the meaning of this? What is the meaning of this?' And that dulls us to the other pleasures poetry offers. Billy Collins confrontdullmean Change image and share on social
I am a nonparticipant of social media. I'm not much attracted to anything that involves the willing forfeiture of privacy and the foregrounding of insignificance. Billy Collins attractforegroundforfeiture Change image and share on social
I'm happy to stick with my persona. There are themes of love lost and love regained, but the main themes of all poems are basically love and death, and that seems to be the message of poetry. Billy Collins basicallydeathhappy Change image and share on social
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. Billy Collins beginengagementestablish share on social
I have my Poetry 180 project, which I've made my main project. We encourage high schools, because that's really where, for most people, poetry dies off and gets buried under other adolescent pursuits. Billy Collins adolescentburyencourage Change image and share on social
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. Billy Collins attractbackform share on social
I'm pretty much all for poetry in public places - poetry on buses, poetry on subways, on billboards, on cereal boxes. Billy Collins billboardboxbuse Change image and share on social
I learned snails don't have ears. They live in silence. They go slowly. Slowly, slowly in silence. Billy Collins earlearnlive Change image and share on social