Billy Collins, named U.S. Poet Laureate in June 2001 and reappointed to the post in 2002, has published seven collections of poetry, including The Apple That Astonished Paris; Nine Horses; The Art of Drowning; Picnic, Lightning; Questions about Angels; and Sailing Alone Around the Room. A professor of English at Lehman College of the City University of New York, he lives in Somers, New York.
"Collins is jazzman and Buddhist, charmer and
prince."--Booklist
"Billy Collins's poetry is widely accessible. He writes in an
original way about all manner of ordinary things and situations
with both humor and a surprising contemplative twist."--James H.
Billington, Librarian of Congress announcing the appointment of
Billy Collins as Poet Laureate
"Billy Collins can be downright funny; he's a parodist, a feigning
trickster, an ironic, entertaining magician-as-hero. . . . Without
question, Collins writes with verve, gumption and deep
intelligence. Not many poets can infuse humor with such serious
knowledge; not many can range so far throughout history and look so
freshly into the future. Not many can please so thoroughly and
still manage to chide, prod, urge, criticize, and teach."
--Poetry Magazine
"One of the richest imaginations around . . . the affectionate
humor with which Mr. Collins regards his surroundings amounts to a
powerful kind of love, a reverence of the moment."
--Washington Post
This book, one of five winners of the 1990 National Poetry Series competition, is Collins's fourth book of poems. Unrhymed, playfully subdued in tone, and somewhat restrained by a loose hexameter line, Collins's poems might be characterized as metaphysical musings in a whimsical mode. The poet mocks human inflexibility (``the only question you ever hear is about/ the little dance floor on the head of a pin''), hankers after the American pastoral (in ``American Sonnet''), and imagines being transformed by Kafka into the New York Public Library: ``I would feel the pages of books turning inside me like butterflies./ I would stare over Fifth Avenue with a perfectly straight face.'' Although occasionally glib or bland in themselves, these poems build upon each other, and those who read this volume from start to finish will be moved by the accumulated power of a poet who is not afraid to be alone with his imaginary, dissembling landscapes. For general and academic collections.--Ellen Kaufman, Dewey Ballantine Law Lib., New York
"Collins is jazzman and Buddhist, charmer and
prince."--Booklist
"Billy Collins's poetry is widely accessible. He writes in an original way about all manner of ordinary things and situations with both humor and a surprising contemplative twist."--James H. Billington, Librarian of Congress announcing the appointment of Billy Collins as Poet Laureate
 |
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
|
