dagblog - Comments for "Happy Birthday, Billy Collins."

Bernie Sanders to announce

Oxy Mora — Tue, 22 Mar 2016 14:50:54 +0000

In reply to Happy Birthday, Billy Collins.

Bernie Sanders to announce his pick for Poet Laureate today after the primaries.

Several notable poets have lived in Vermont.

David Mamet frequents Vermont and has, well, written four poems, along with winning a Pulitzer, and has a kind of raspy personality not unlike Bernie and the restaurant owner who I have seen throw people out of his joint for not ordering enough desert.

(I had found some Mamet first editions in a Good Will store in Florida, shipped them to my daughter in Vermont. She took them into a neighborhood joint, asked Mamet to sign them, which he did, also drawing some caricatures of himself on the title page, very gracious he was.)

Thanks, Mr. Day. You might

Oxy Mora — Tue, 22 Mar 2016 14:12:39 +0000

In reply to I did not know who this

Thanks, Mr. Day. You might know one of his most "popular"---oh, what a nasty word to use---poems, "Another reason I don't keep a Gun in the House."

Collins admittedly tries for a touch of disorientation with, for one thing, shifts in physical perspective.

He was Poet Laureate of the U.S. from 2001 to 2003.

I did not know who this

Richard Day — Tue, 22 Mar 2016 03:42:54 +0000

In reply to Happy Birthday, Billy Collins.

I did not know who this gentle soul was. ha

"He seques to parallel planes"

Then seduces you with the gentle touch of a kind soul?

Thank you, I shall look this guy up.

Anecdote: I couldn't find my

Oxy Mora — Mon, 21 Mar 2016 20:18:19 +0000

In reply to Happy Birthday, Billy Collins.

Anecdote: I couldn't find my copy of the book, was going from memory on some poems. I wanted to re-read some poems and decided to buy another book---a huge challenge these days to find a book store, but, thankfully, there is Half Priced Books, with stores around Dallas. (won't do Collins any good, I promise to buy one on Amazon, probably not much better for him). In any case, found a copy of "The Trouble with poetry", $3 bucks, but it was a signed copy, and not many of this printing around. Now that's congruence. Or is it serendipity? If you haven't scouted books in Salvation Army stores and thrift stores all over the country, you might not get the thrill of finding a signed copy which has been mis-priced, for which you weren't even looking, and by the bloke in your blog.

Billy Collins, a national

Oxy Mora — Mon, 21 Mar 2016 18:41:07 +0000

In reply to Happy Birthday, Billy Collins.

Billy Collins, a national treasure, his poetry often described as "accessible' in the vein of Frost's "freshness and simplicity" when in early times he was compared with Eliot and Wallace Stevens. Yes, he's accessible. I cry, thinking of my Dad, every time I read "Death of the hat".