1. Olivia Hays, Alicia Burtha, Cooper Lathrop, and Kirsten Everson
Billy Collins
Poet of America
Olivia Hays, Alicia Burtha, Cooper Lathrop, and Kirsten Everson

2. “How would you feel, If you never knew from one day to the next how you were going to spend it…”
“It has floated away down a dark mythological river…”
“Not a single mouse to punctuate the blankness…”
“I say, drop a mouse into a poem, and watch him work his way out…”
“No wonder the moon in the window seems to
have drifted…”

3. Biography Born on March 22, 1941 Wrote first poem at 12
Earned doctorate in Romantic Poetry
Professor at Lehman College in New York
Characterized by plain language and gentle humor

4. Biography Cont.
Qualities- accessibility, humor, and regard for the everyday
Moods-Confused, depressed, outdoorsy, and mellow
His poems often begin with conversation or a simple idea or image

5. influences
“Well I had a lot of influences as a young person, obviously the parents. I’m proud of my father for his sense of humor. He was a joker, and he had a lot of formal jokes;”
“New York has had no influence on my persona.”

6. WE DISAGREE WITH “easy to love” “combines mundane and serious”
“a voice that is both philosophical and comic, intellectually stimulating yet accessible”
“and – clap you hands – the Peanuts Play School” – Billy Collins. “Snow Day”
“utilizes a range of tones, from the absurd to highly serious”

7. “Morning” Billy Collins Why do we bother with the rest of the day,
the swale of the afternoon,
the sudden dip into evening,
then night with his notorious perfumes,
his many-pointed stars?
This is the best—
throwing off the light covers,
feet on the cold floor,
and buzzing around the house on espresso—
maybe a splash of water on the face,
a palmful of vitamins—
but mostly buzzing around the house on espresso,
dictionary and atlas open on the rug,
the typewriter waiting for the key of the head,
a cello on the radio,
and, if necessary, the windows—
trees fifty, a hundred years old
out there,
heavy clouds on the way
and the lawn steaming like a horse
in the early morning.

8. We agree with: “shameless about using satire and humor”
Smokey the Bear heads
into the autumn woods
with a red can of gasoline
and a box of wooden matches. – Billy Collins, “Flames”
“At sixty, Billy Collins could look back on his six successful books of poetry and call it a day”
Received the honor of the US Poet Laureate in 2001 as well as several other awards

9. We agree with: “lack of emotional depth”
Some of his works titles are “I Go Back To The House For A Book” and “Fishing On The Susquehanna In July”
“shameless about using satire and humor”
“Smokey the Bear heads
into the autumn woods
with a red can of gasoline
and a box of wooden matches.” – Billy Collins, “Flames”

10. We agree with (Cont.): “He writes in an original way”
“as the others stood around the fire
draped in the skins of animals
talking to each other only in vowels,
for this was long before the invention of consonants.”
– Billy Collins, “The First Dream”

11. We agree with (Cont.):
“At sixty, Billy Collins could look back on his six successful books of poetry and call it a day”
Received the honor of the US Poet Laureate in 2001 as well as several other awards.

12. Snow day

13. CoLLINclusion "The mind can be trained to relieve itself on paper."
— Billy Collins
"One of these days I'm-a make me a book out of you."