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Billy Collins Quotes

American - Poet | March 22, 1941 -

I try to write very fast. I don't revise very much. I write the poem in one sitting. Just let it rip. It's usually over in twenty to forty minutes. I'll go back and tinker with a word or two, change a line for some metrical reason weeks later, but I try to get the whole thing just done.

Change Back Fast Go Done Sitting

I think if a poet wanted to lead, he or she would want the message to be unequivocally clear and free of ambiguity. Whereas poetry is actually the home of ambiguity, ambivalence and uncertainty.

Home Poetry Free Uncertainty Think

I really have a distaste for poets who announce themselves at 50 yards; you know, here he comes, you know, with the beret and the cane and the cape and the whatever - whatever mishegas is part of the outfit there.

You Outfit Know Whatever Here Who

I think it's good not to make demands on the reader too early. But as the poem goes on, I want the journey of the poem to lead into some interesting places.

Good Journey Think Interesting Early

We love, you know, children love the ingredients of poetry. And then they go into this tunnel that we call adolescence, and when they come out of it, they hate poetry.

Love Children Hate Poetry You Know

I'm very aware of the presence of a reader, and that probably is a reaction against a lot of poems that I do read which seem oblivious to my presence as a reader.

Reaction Presence Seem Against Aware

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.

Poetry People Project High Off Made

The public is probably more suspicious of poets than women, and maybe for good reason.

Good Women More Reason Than Poets

The poets who have written the best poems about war seem to be the poets whose countries have experienced an invasion or vicious dictatorships.

Best War Seem Whose Who Poems

Emily Dickinson seems rather tame because she pretty much uses the same meter every time. It's called 'common meter.' It's a line of four beats that's followed by a line of three beats.

Time Three She Same Line Pretty

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

Poetry Book Think Back Only Front

When you put a book together and arrange it, there's a lot of anxiety and turmoil about what order the poems should be in.

Together Book Anxiety You Order Put

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