Share & Save
Meaning
This reads as a defense of a familiar voice, and a plain statement of what poems keep circling around. It suggests that love and mortality are not separate subjects but the core material poetry keeps returning to, especially when a writer wants to sound direct rather than ornamental. It lands for anyone trying to explain why certain poems feel intimate, even when they are broad in scope.
When It Was Said
Not documented yet.
Who It Was Said To
Not documented yet.
Historical Context
Not documented yet.
Source
Not documented yet.
Original Language & Translation
Originally said in English.
Did They Really Say It?
Not documented yet.
Did You Know?
Not documented yet.
About Billy Collins
American poet, Poet Laureate of the United States
Billy Collins is an American poet who served as Poet Laureate of the United States from 2001 to 2003. He was a distinguished professor at Lehman College of the City University of New York and retired in 2016. He was named a Literary Lion by the New York Public Library in 1992 and served as New York State Poet from 2004 to 2006. In 2016, he was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He also taught in the MFA program at Stony Brook Southampton.
More from Billy Collins (103 quotes) →More quotes by Billy Collins
- “I find that my reading, particularly nonfiction, can inspire a poem as well as anything else.”Billy Collins
- “Some honor Cummings as the granddaddy of all American innovators in poetry and ascribe to him a diverse proge…”Billy Collins
- “Often people, when they're confronted with a poem, it's like someone who keep saying 'what is the meaning of…”Billy Collins
- “Radio is such a perfect medium for the transmission of poetry, primarily because there just is the voice, the…”Billy Collins
More Poetry quotes
- “Poetic talent doesn't operate in a vacuum. There is a spirit of Polish poetry.”Wislawa Szymborska
- “...prose unfolds in time; and time contains both obstacles and revelations. Prose develops, the way character…”Molly Peacock
- “I think of you when upon the sea the sun flings her beams.I think of you when the moonlight shines in silvery…”Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Death: more sayings
- “Freddie Gray's life was poverty and violence. Trauma and hopelessness. His death was an exclamation point on…”Wes Moore
- “You have made flowers grow where I cultivated dust and stones. Remember this, on this journey you insist on m…”Robert Jordan
- “We had a few tragic accidents in our state, as they've had in every state, from train crashes on down. And re…”Amy Klobuchar