Of all the poetry books I own, this is my favorite. Billy Collins is such a masterful poet. He brings both poignancy and humor to his poems. I was able to go to a reading he did a few years ago and was completely blown away. Collins is a brilliant poet and this volume is a brilliant selection of his writing. This is definitely one of my desert island books. ( )

This anthology contains a generous selection of poems from four of his books published between 1988 and 1998 plus a group of new poems. Collins uses a wide range of subjects; he seems to be able to write a poem about anything that pops into his mind and many poems reveal his process of thought as he is composing them. Two of my favorite subjects that Collins writes about are art and music. I also particularly enjoy his “poems about poems” and this volume has some excellent examples of these which would make a great introduction to poetry in high school.

Some poems start out about one subject but seem to change direction mid-verse. Once in a while a poem will seem to have a surreal quality. I find his work intriguing and feel he creates a connection between himself and his reader that makes his work seem personal. ( )

sources: The Apple That Astonished Paris (1988) / Questions About Angels (1991) / The Art of Drowning (1995) / Picnic, Lightning (1998) / New Poems

Beautiful, enjoyable, approachable poems.

(My favorite, I think, is "Questions About Angels", which makes me smile and ache at the same time. ) ( )

I really enjoy Billy Collins’ style. It’s straight-forward and unassuming. He writes as if poetry is the easiest thing in the world, and the reader is convinced it is. He loves it, and that passion for what he is doing comes across. I was even inspired to try and write some poetry last month. It’s not easy: it’s very hard. It’s hard to capture emotions and moments and images in just a few lines. And yet, Billy Collins does just that.

His themes are likewise real: I can relate to nearly every poem. He writes about growing older, being a professor, reading books, writing poetry, waking up in the night with insomnia. And yet, his poems are deceptively simple: behind each simple scene is emotion and struggle. He is real, and I feel I’ve met him, even though his poetry may be fiction just as prose often is.

My favorite poem in the volume was “Introduction to Poetry,” which was previously published in a different volume. My next favorite poem was the “The Flight of the Reader”. As the last poem in the volume, it is a perfect explanation on why I loved this volume of poetry. He is describing his thoughts, as the writer, of us, the reader of a volume of his poetry. He’s pondering why we’re still reading and what he’d do if we stopped reading.

I'd highly recommend Sailing Alone Around the Room for an introduction to Billy Collins: it includes a wonderful variety of poetry to savor over weeks.

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More and more I appreciate the poem that brings poetry down to the familiar, even the mundane. A cup of coffee and a cigarette, or the way leaves look just before a storm. Billy Collins is a master of this kind of simplicity. He grounds you firmly in the world, and then lets the truth of it open out before you. Accessible though never simplistic, direct and dryly funny, Collins is a gem. Read him. ( )