Water, Water, Billy Collins
Water, Water, Billy Collins
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Water, Water
Poems

Author: Billy Collins

Narrator: Billy Collins

Unabridged: 1 hr 30 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 11/19/2024

Categories: Fiction, Poetry


Synopsis

From the former Poet Laureate of the United States and New York Times bestselling author of Aimless Love comes a wondrous new collection of poems focused on the joys and mysteries of daily life.

“Among the best poems that [Billy] Collins has ever written.”—Maureen Corrigan, NPR

“Witty, wry and tender when it hurts, Water, Water is a pleasure to read and easy to give.”—The Washington Post

“Collins remains the most companionable of poetic companions.”—The New York Times

In this collection of sixty new poems, Billy Collins writes about the beauties and ironies of everyday experience. A poem is best, he feels, when it begins in clarity but ends with a whiff of mystery.

In Water, Water, Collins combines his vigilant attention and respect for the peripheral to create moments of delight. Common and uncommon events are captured here with equal fascination, be it a cat leaning to drink from a swimming pool, a nurse calling a name in a waiting room, or an astronaut reciting Emily Dickinson from outer space. With his trademark lyrical informality, Collins asks us to slow down and glimpse the elevated in the ordinary, the odd in the familiar. It’s no surprise that The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal both call Collins one of America’s favorite poets.

The Monet Conundrum

Is every one of these poems
different from the others
he asked himself,
as the rain quieted down,

or are they all the same poem,
haystack after haystack
at different times of day,
different shadows and shades of hay?

Author Bio

Billy Collins served two terms as the Poet Laureate of the United States, in 2001 to 2003, and then as the New York State Poet for 2004 through 2006. He is the author of several collections of poetry. He has won the Mark Twain Award for Humor in Poetry, the Norman Mailer Prize for Poetry, the Levinson Prize, and the Oscar Blumenthal Prize and been named Poetry magazine’s Poet of the Year and a New York Public Library Literary Lion, among many other awards and honors. He is a distinguished professor of English at Lehman College of the City University of New York and is the senior distinguished fellow of the Winter Park Institute in Florida.

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