---
title: "Best Poetry Quotes by Billy Collins"
description: "77 Poetry quotes by Billy Collins. Plus more from Billy Collins and more Poetry sayings from other authors."
image: "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/b9f/billy-collins-3004_ambiguous_i-hope-the-poem-as-it-goes-on-gets-more_3098346.png"
---

> [I hope the poem, as it goes on, gets more complicated, a little more demanding, a little more ambiguous or speculative, so…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/billy-collins/i-hope-the-poem-as-it-goes-on-gets-more-complicated-a-little-more/)

[Billy Collins](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/billy-collins/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/b9f/billy-collins-3004_ambiguous_i-hope-the-poem-as-it-goes-on-gets-more_3098346.png)

> [Robert Frost really started this whole thing rolling. He was, I believe, the first poet who started going to colleges. Before that,…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/billy-collins/robert-frost-really-started-this-whole-thing-rolling-he-was-i-believe/)

[Billy Collins](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/billy-collins/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/8f8/billy-collins-3004_believe_robert-frost-really-started-this-whole-t_2003992.jpg)

> [“Is there a better method of departure by night than this quiet bon voyage with an open book, the sole companion who…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/billy-collins/is-there-a-better-method-of-departure-by-night-than-this-quiet-bon/)

[Billy Collins](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/billy-collins/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/103/billy-collins-3004_books_is-there-a-better-method-of-departure-by_744789.png)

> [I write with a Uni-Ball Onyx Micropoint on nine-by-seven bound notebooks made by a Canadian company called Blueline. After I do a…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/billy-collins/i-write-with-a-uni-ball-onyx-micropoint-on-nine-by-seven-bound/)

[Billy Collins](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/billy-collins/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/233/billy-collins-3004_balls_i-write-with-a-uni-ball-onyx-micropoint_2127807.png)

> [I'm trying to write poems that involve beginning at a known place, and ending up at a slightly different place. I'm trying…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/billy-collins/i-m-trying-to-write-poems-that-involve-beginning-at-a-known-place-and/)

[Billy Collins](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/billy-collins/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/cdb/billy-collins-3004_different_i-m-trying-to-write-poems-that-involve-b_2852454.jpg)

> [Poems are not easy to start, and they're not easy to finish. There's a great pleasure in - I wouldn't say ease,…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/billy-collins/poems-are-not-easy-to-start-and-they-re-not-easy-to-finish-there-s-a/)

[Billy Collins](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/billy-collins/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/959/billy-collins-3004_accompany_poems-are-not-easy-to-start-and-they-re_1461537.png)

> [I think a good poem should have some inscrutable part. You can't quite explain it. The poem can only explain itself to…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/billy-collins/i-think-a-good-poem-should-have-some-inscrutable-part-you-can-t-quite/)

[Billy Collins](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/billy-collins/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/72d/billy-collins-3004_bits_i-think-a-good-poem-should-have-some-ins_2198787.png)

> [“...The dog (the poet) is on top of a locomotive,”… “He’s got a box full of track, and he’s frenetically laying down…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/billy-collins/the-dog-the-poet-is-on-top-of-a-locomotive-he-s-got-a-box-full-of/)

[Billy Collins](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/billy-collins/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/05b/billy-collins-3004_dog_the-dog-the-poet-is-on-top-of-a-locomoti_2142376.png)

> [I find it strange that - at least in my take on it - the people who are the most alarmed about…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/billy-collins/i-find-it-strange-that-at-least-in-my-take-on-it-the-people-who-are/)

[Billy Collins](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/billy-collins/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/89f/billy-collins-3004_century_i-find-it-strange-that-at-least-in-my-ta_867801.png)

> [I can hear the library humming in the night, a choir of authors murmuring inside their books along the unlit, alphabetical shelves,…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/billy-collins/i-can-hear-the-library-humming-in-the-night-a-choir-of-authors/)

[Billy Collins](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/billy-collins/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/88b/billy-collins-3004_book_i-can-hear-the-library-humming-in-the-ni_191338.png)

> [“ …(my father) would say nothing, And I could not find a silence Among the one hundred Chinese silences That would fit…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/billy-collins/my-father-would-say-nothing-and-i-could-not-find-a-silence-among-the/)

[Billy Collins](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/billy-collins/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/03b/billy-collins-3004_grief_my-father-would-say-nothing-and-i-could_953417.jpg)

> [Introduction To Poetry I ask them to take a poem and hold it up to the light like a color slide or…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/billy-collins/introduction-to-poetry-i-ask-them-to-take-a-poem-and-hold-it-up-to/)

[Billy Collins](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/billy-collins/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/744/billy-collins-3004_chairs_introduction-to-poetry-i-ask-them-to-tak_2542593.jpg)

> [“You know the parlor trick. wrap your arms around your own body and from the back it looks like someone is embracing…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/billy-collins/you-know-the-parlor-trick-wrap-your-arms-around-your-own-body-and/)

[Billy Collins](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/billy-collins/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/9b1/billy-collins-3004_embrace_you-know-the-parlor-trick-wrap-your-arms_2773537.jpg)

> [“O Canada I have not forgotten you, as I kneel in my canoe, beholding this vision of a bookcase. You are the…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/billy-collins/o-canada-i-have-not-forgotten-you-as-i-kneel-in-my-canoe-beholding/)

[Billy Collins](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/billy-collins/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/14a/billy-collins-3004_canada_o-canada-i-have-not-forgotten-you-as-i-k_1488358.jpg)

> [I think what gets a poem going is an initiating line. Sometimes a first line will occur, and it goes nowhere; but…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/billy-collins/i-think-what-gets-a-poem-going-is-an-initiating-line-sometimes-a/)

[Billy Collins](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/billy-collins/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/f9d/billy-collins-3004_continuing_i-think-what-gets-a-poem-going-is-an-ini_1603152.jpg)

> [By clarity I don't mean that we're always in kind of a simple area where everything is clear and comforting and understood.…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/billy-collins/by-clarity-i-don-t-mean-that-we-re-always-in-kind-of-a-simple-area/)

[Billy Collins](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/billy-collins/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/fac/billy-collins-3004_areas_by-clarity-i-don-t-mean-that-we-re-alway_2488589.jpg)

> [ When you get a poem \[in a public place\], it happens to you so suddenly that you don't have time to deploy… ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/billy-collins/when-you-get-a-poem-in-a-public-place-it-happens-to-you-so-suddenly/)

[Billy Collins](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/billy-collins/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/283/billy-collins-3004_happens_when-you-get-a-poem-in-a-public-place-it_2255549.png)

> [Some difficulty is warranted and other difficulty I think is gratuitous. And I think I can tell the difference. There are certainly…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/billy-collins/some-difficulty-is-warranted-and-other-difficulty-i-think-is/)

[Billy Collins](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/billy-collins/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/5e9/billy-collins-3004_differences_some-difficulty-is-warranted-and-other-d_320662.png)

> [One of the ridiculous aspects of being a poet is the huge gulf between how seriously we take ourselves and how generally…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/billy-collins/one-of-the-ridiculous-aspects-of-being-a-poet-is-the-huge-gulf/)

[Billy Collins](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/billy-collins/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/3ca/billy-collins-3004_aspect_one-of-the-ridiculous-aspects-of-being-a_1514128.png)

> [The first line is the DNA of the poem; the rest of the poem is constructed out of that first line. A…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/billy-collins/the-first-line-is-the-dna-of-the-poem-the-rest-of-the-poem-is/)

[Billy Collins](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/billy-collins/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/790/billy-collins-3004_bases_the-first-line-is-the-dna-of-the-poem-th_957164.png)

> [Usually the poems are written in one sitting. There's always a groping towards some satisfying ending. But I'd say the hardest part…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/billy-collins/usually-the-poems-are-written-in-one-sitting-there-s-always-a-groping/)

[Billy Collins](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/billy-collins/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/d11/billy-collins-3004_difficulty_usually-the-poems-are-written-in-one-sit_277877.png)

> [I try to presume that no one is interested in me. And I think experience bears that out. No one's interested in…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/billy-collins/i-try-to-presume-that-no-one-is-interested-in-me-and-i-think/)

[Billy Collins](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/billy-collins/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/dfd/billy-collins-3004_bears_i-try-to-presume-that-no-one-is-interest_2338516.png)

> [You'll find i-poetry, you'll find that you can download poetry, that you can stuff your i-pod with recorded poetry. So just to…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/billy-collins/you-ll-find-i-poetry-you-ll-find-that-you-can-download-poetry-that/)

[Billy Collins](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/billy-collins/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/b8f/billy-collins-3004_answers_you-ll-find-i-poetry-you-ll-find-that-yo_2275088.png)

> [“It is time to float on the waters of the night. Time to wrap my arms around this book and press it…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/billy-collins/it-is-time-to-float-on-the-waters-of-the-night-time-to-wrap-my-arms/)

[Billy Collins](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/billy-collins/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/f87/billy-collins-3004_books_it-is-time-to-float-on-the-waters-of-the_2571887.png)

> [I see the progress typical in some of my poems as starting with something simple and moving into something more demanding. This…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/billy-collins/i-see-the-progress-typical-in-some-of-my-poems-as-starting-with/)

[Billy Collins](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/billy-collins/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/72c/billy-collins-3004_moving_i-see-the-progress-typical-in-some-of-my_2811430.png)

> [I'm a line-maker. I think that's what makes poets different from prose-writers. That's the main way. We think, not just in sentences…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/billy-collins/i-m-a-line-maker-i-think-that-s-what-makes-poets-different-from-prose/)

[Billy Collins](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/billy-collins/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/bf2/billy-collins-3004_different_i-m-a-line-maker-i-think-that-s-what-mak_1538837.png)

> [I think clarity is the real risk in poetry because you are exposed. You're out in the open field. You're actually saying…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/billy-collins/i-think-clarity-is-the-real-risk-in-poetry-because-you-are-exposed/)

[Billy Collins](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/billy-collins/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/145/billy-collins-3004_clarity_i-think-clarity-is-the-real-risk-in-poet_31055.png)

> [I can't picture myself starting out aiming to do anything or having much of an agenda.I think in writing a poem, I'm…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/billy-collins/i-can-t-picture-myself-starting-out-aiming-to-do-anything-or-having/)

[Billy Collins](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/billy-collins/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/337/billy-collins-3004_adjustment_i-can-t-picture-myself-starting-out-aimi_1002478.jpg)

> [Radio is such a perfect medium for the transmission of poetry, primarily because there just is the voice, there's no visual distraction.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/billy-collins/radio-is-such-a-perfect-medium-for-the-transmission-of-poetry/)

[Billy Collins](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/billy-collins/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/4a3/billy-collins-3004_distraction_radio-is-such-a-perfect-medium-for-the-t_2845149.png)

> [“It seems only yesterday I used to believe there was nothing under my skin but light. If you cut me I could…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/billy-collins/it-seems-only-yesterday-i-used-to-believe-there-was-nothing-under-my-2/)

[Billy Collins](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/billy-collins/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/f21/billy-collins-3004_favorite_it-seems-only-yesterday-i-used-to-believ_1861442.jpg)

> [Humor, for me, is really a gate of departure. Its a way of enticing a reader into a poem so that less…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/billy-collins/humor-for-me-is-really-a-gate-of-departure-its-a-way-of-enticing-a/)

[Billy Collins](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/billy-collins/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/e2f/billy-collins-3004_books_humor-for-me-is-really-a-gate-of-departu_218013.jpg)

> [Poetry is my cheap means of transportation, by the end of the poem the reader should be in a different place from…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/billy-collins/poetry-is-my-cheap-means-of-transportation-by-the-end-of-the-poem-the/)

[Billy Collins](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/billy-collins/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/2dc/billy-collins-3004_books_poetry-is-my-cheap-means-of-transportati_2018200.png)

> [I'm very conscious of the fact that every line should have a cadence to it. It should contribute to the progress of…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/billy-collins/i-m-very-conscious-of-the-fact-that-every-line-should-have-a-cadence/)

[Billy Collins](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/billy-collins/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/5ed/billy-collins-3004_attention_i-m-very-conscious-of-the-fact-that-ever_2723087.png)

> [I just think that the world of workshops - I've written a poem that is a parody of workshop talk, I've written…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/billy-collins/i-just-think-that-the-world-of-workshops-i-ve-written-a-poem-that-is/)

[Billy Collins](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/billy-collins/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/5c8/billy-collins-3004_amount_i-just-think-that-the-world-of-workshops_1409626.jpg)

> [There's this pet phrase about writing that is bandied around particularly in workshops about "finding your own voice as a poet", which…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/billy-collins/there-s-this-pet-phrase-about-writing-that-is-bandied-around-2/)

[Billy Collins](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/billy-collins/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/d5a/billy-collins-3004_direct_there-s-this-pet-phrase-about-writing-th_3072518.jpg)

> [Now I would say at any given moment in American life, there are probably 45 poets in airplanes vectoring across the country…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/billy-collins/now-i-would-say-at-any-given-moment-in-american-life-there-are/)

[Billy Collins](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/billy-collins/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/df4/billy-collins-3004_airplane_now-i-would-say-at-any-given-moment-in-a_1913869.png)

> [Particularly when I thought of myself as a Wallace Stevens acolyte, I wrote very difficult poetry and I was really guilty of…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/billy-collins/particularly-when-i-thought-of-myself-as-a-wallace-stevens-acolyte-i/)

[Billy Collins](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/billy-collins/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/ee9/billy-collins-3004_clever_particularly-when-i-thought-of-myself-as_602493.jpg)

## Other authors on Poetry

- [ ![](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wp-content/uploads/sms4s/authors/processed/b001/author-melody-lee-1672.jpg) Melody Lee 207 quotes ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/poetry/melody-lee/)
- [Ralph Waldo Emerson 146 quotes](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/poetry/ralph-waldo-emerson/)
- [ ![](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wp-content/uploads/sms4s/authors/processed/b008/author-edward-hirsch-31825.jpg) Edward Hirsch 138 quotes ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/poetry/edward-hirsch/)
- [ ![](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wp-content/uploads/sms4s/authors/processed/b008/author-dejan-stojanovic-28518.jpg) Dejan Stojanovic 133 quotes ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/poetry/dejan-stojanovic/)
- [ ![](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wp-content/uploads/sms4s/authors/processed/b011/author-henry-david-thoreau-41473.jpg) Henry David Thoreau 111 quotes ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/poetry/henry-david-thoreau/)
- [ ![](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wp-content/uploads/sms4s/authors/processed/b002/author-alfa-h-4410.jpg) Alfa H 105 quotes ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/poetry/alfa-h/)
- [ ![](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wp-content/uploads/sms4s/authors/processed/b017/author-mary-oliver-65135.jpg) Mary Oliver 99 quotes ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/poetry/mary-oliver/)
- [Atticus Poetry 92 quotes](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/poetry/atticus-poetry/)
- [ ![](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wp-content/uploads/sms4s/authors/processed/b006/author-charles-bukowski-22166.jpg) Charles Bukowski 89 quotes ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/poetry/charles-bukowski/)
- [ ![](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wp-content/uploads/sms4s/authors/processed/b024/author-walt-whitman-94308.jpg) Walt Whitman 82 quotes ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/poetry/walt-whitman/)
- [ ![](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wp-content/uploads/sms4s/authors/processed/b019/author-oscar-wilde-72846.jpg) Oscar Wilde 78 quotes ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/poetry/oscar-wilde/)
- [ ![](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wp-content/uploads/sms4s/authors/processed/b024/author-virginia-woolf-93906.jpg) Virginia Woolf 75 quotes ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/poetry/virginia-woolf/)

## More by Billy Collins

> [“The whole idea of it makes me feel Like I’m coming down with something, Something worse than any stomach ache Or the headaches I…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/billy-collins/the-whole-idea-of-it-makes-me-feel-like-i-m-coming-down-with/)

[Billy Collins](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/billy-collins/)

> [I think clarity is the real risk in poetry because you are exposed. You're out in the open field. You're actually saying things that…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/billy-collins/i-think-clarity-is-the-real-risk-in-poetry-because-you-are-exposed/)

[Billy Collins](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/billy-collins/)

> [...pleasure, of course, is a slippery word… Our pleasures ultimately belong to us, not to the pleasure's so](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/billy-collins/pleasure-of-course-is-a-slippery-word-our-pleasures-ultimately-belong/)

[Billy Collins](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/billy-collins/)

> [I stared up at the ebbing quarter moon and the stars scattered like a handful of salt across the faraway sky...](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/billy-collins/i-stared-up-at-the-ebbing-quarter-moon-and-the-stars-scattered-like-a/)

[Billy Collins](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/billy-collins/)

> [Death is what makes life fun.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/billy-collins/death-is-what-makes-life-fun/)

[Billy Collins](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/billy-collins/)

> [A trouble with poetry is the presence of presumptuousness in poetry, the sense you get in a poem that the poet takes for granted…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/billy-collins/a-trouble-with-poetry-is-the-presence-of-presumptuousness-in-poetry/)

[Billy Collins](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/billy-collins/)

> [You come by your style by learning what to leave out. At first you tend to overwrite—embellishment instead of insight. You either continue to…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/billy-collins/you-come-by-your-style-by-learning-what-to-leave-out-at-first-you/)

[Billy Collins](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/billy-collins/)

> [But my heart is always propped up in a field on its tripod, ready for the next arrow.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/billy-collins/but-my-heart-is-always-propped-up-in-a-field-on-its-tripod-ready-for/)

[Billy Collins](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/billy-collins/)

> [I can hear the library humming in the night, a choir of authors murmuring inside their books along the unlit, alphabetical shelves, Giovanni Pontano…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/billy-collins/i-can-hear-the-library-humming-in-the-night-a-choir-of-authors/)

[Billy Collins](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/billy-collins/)

> [Every Day Is for the Thief is a vivid, episodic evocation of the truism that you can't go home again; but that doesn't mean…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/billy-collins/every-day-is-for-the-thief-is-a-vivid-episodic-evocation-of-the/)

[Billy Collins](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/billy-collins/)

> [Humor, for me, is really a gate of departure. Its a way of enticing a reader into a poem so that less funny things…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/billy-collins/humor-for-me-is-really-a-gate-of-departure-its-a-way-of-enticing-a/)

[Billy Collins](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/billy-collins/)

> [You know how sometimes you just have a memory of looking up and seeing a face looking over your crib and then remember nothing…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/billy-collins/you-know-how-sometimes-you-just-have-a-memory-of-looking-up-and/)

[Billy Collins](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/billy-collins/)

> [Usually the poems are written in one sitting. There's always a groping towards some satisfying ending. But I'd say the hardest part is not…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/billy-collins/usually-the-poems-are-written-in-one-sitting-there-s-always-a-groping/)

[Billy Collins](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/billy-collins/)

> [I was influenced by the Beats because I actually just began to commit adolescence around 1955, when "Howl" and Rebel Without a Cause and…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/billy-collins/i-was-influenced-by-the-beats-because-i-actually-just-began-to-commit/)

[Billy Collins](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/billy-collins/)

> [Some difficulty is warranted and other difficulty I think is gratuitous. And I think I can tell the difference. There are certainly very difficult…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/billy-collins/some-difficulty-is-warranted-and-other-difficulty-i-think-is/)

[Billy Collins](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/billy-collins/)

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                        "text": "Robert Frost really started this whole thing rolling. He was, I believe, the first poet who started going to colleges. Before that, poets didn't give public readings very often, certainly not - there was no circuit of schools.",
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                        "text": "I write with a Uni-Ball Onyx Micropoint on nine-by-seven bound notebooks made by a Canadian company called Blueline. After I do a few drafts, I type up the poem on a Macintosh G3 and then send it out the door.",
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                        "text": "Poems are not easy to start, and they're not easy to finish. There's a great pleasure in - I wouldn't say ease, but maybe kind of a fascinated ease that accompanies the actual writing of the poem. I find it very difficult to get started.",
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                        "text": "I think a good poem should have some inscrutable part. You can't quite explain it. The poem can only explain itself to a certain limit and at that point you enter into a little bit of mystery. That for me is the perfect poem: to begin in clarity and to end in mystery.",
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                        "text": "“...The dog (the poet) is on top of a locomotive,”… “He’s got a box full of track, and he’s frenetically laying down track in front of the train.”",
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                        "text": "I find it strange that - at least in my take on it - the people who are the most alarmed about the dire times we live in are the ones who seem to be humorless, in their taste for poetry anyway. Humor is just an ingredient. It's always been in poetry. It kind of dropped out of poetry I think during the 19th and up to the mid-twentieth century. But it's found its way back. And it's simply an ingredient.",
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                        "text": "I can hear the library humming in the night, a choir of authors murmuring inside their books along the unlit, alphabetical shelves, Giovanni Pontano next to Pope, Dumas next to his son, each one stitched into his own private coat, together forming a low, gigantic chord of language.",
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                        "text": "“ …(my father) would say nothing, And I could not find a silence Among the one hundred Chinese silences That would fit the one he created Even though I was the one Who had just made up the business Of the one hundred Chinese silences- The Silence of the Night Boat. And the Silence of the Lotus, Cousin to the Silence of the Temple Bell Only deeper and softer… ”",
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                        "text": "Introduction To Poetry I ask them to take a poem and hold it up to the light like a color slide or press an ear against its hive. I say drop a mouse into a poem and watch him probe his way out, or walk inside the poem's room and feel the walls for a light switch. I want them to waterski across the surface of a poem waving at the author's name on the shore. But all they want to do is tie the poem to a chair with rope and torture a confession out of it. They begin beating it with a hose to find out what it really means.",
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                        "text": "“You know the parlor trick. wrap your arms around your own body and from the back it looks like someone is embracing you her hands grasping your shirt her fingernails teasing your neck from the front it is another story you never looked so alone your crossed elbows and screwy grin you could be waiting for a tailor to fit you with a straight jacket one that would hold you really tight.”",
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                        "text": "“O Canada I have not forgotten you, as I kneel in my canoe, beholding this vision of a bookcase. You are the paddle, the snowshoe, the cabin in the pines. You are the moose in the clearing and the moosehead on the wall. You are the rapids, the propeller, the kerosene lamp. You are the dust that coats the roadside berries. But not only that, you are the two boys with pails walking along that road.”",
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                        "text": "I think what gets a poem going is an initiating line. Sometimes a first line will occur, and it goes nowhere; but other times - and this, I think, is a sense you develop - I can tell that the line wants to continue. If it does, I can feel a sense of momentum - the poem finds a reason for continuing.",
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                        "text": "By clarity I don't mean that we're always in kind of a simple area where everything is clear and comforting and understood. Clarity is certainly a way toward disorientation because if you don't start out - if the reader isn't grounded, if the reader is disoriented in the beginning of the poem, then the reader can't be led astray or disoriented later.",
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                        "text": "When you get a poem [in a public place], it happens to you so suddenly that you don't have time to deploy your anti-poetry deflector shields that were installed in high school.",
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                        "text": "Some difficulty is warranted and other difficulty I think is gratuitous. And I think I can tell the difference. There are certainly very difficult poets that I really enjoy reading.",
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                        "text": "The first line is the DNA of the poem; the rest of the poem is constructed out of that first line. A lot of it has to do with tone because tone is the key signature for the poem. The basis of trust for a reader used to be meter and end-rhyme.",
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                        "text": "Usually the poems are written in one sitting. There's always a groping towards some satisfying ending. But I'd say the hardest part is not writing. Once the writing starts, it's too pleasurable to think of it as a difficulty.",
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                        "text": "I try to presume that no one is interested in me. And I think experience bears that out. No one's interested in the experiences of a stranger - let's put it that way. And then you have difficulty combined with presumptuousness, which is the most dire trouble with poetry.",
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                        "text": "You'll find i-poetry, you'll find that you can download poetry, that you can stuff your i-pod with recorded poetry. So just to answer the question that way, I think that poetry is gonna catch up with that technology quite soon.",
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                        "text": "“It is time to float on the waters of the night. Time to wrap my arms around this book and press it to my chest, life preserver in a sea of unremarkable men and women, anonymous faces on the street, a hundred thousand unalphabetized things, a million forgotten hours.”",
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                        "text": "I see the progress typical in some of my poems as starting with something simple and moving into something more demanding. This is certainly the pattern of weird poetry.",
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                        "text": "I'm a line-maker. I think that's what makes poets different from prose-writers. That's the main way. We think, not just in sentences the way prose writers do but also in lines. So we're doing these two things at the same time.",
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                        "text": "I think clarity is the real risk in poetry because you are exposed. You're out in the open field. You're actually saying things that are comprehensible, and it's easy to criticize something you can understand.",
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                        "text": "I can't picture myself starting out aiming to do anything or having much of an agenda.I think in writing a poem, I'm making some tonal adjustments, and it took me a long time to allow anything like fun into my poetry.",
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                        "text": "Radio is such a perfect medium for the transmission of poetry, primarily because there just is the voice, there's no visual distraction.",
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                        "text": "There's this pet phrase about writing that is bandied around particularly in workshops about \"finding your own voice as a poet\", which I suppose means that you come out from under the direct influence of other poets and have perhaps found a way to combine those influences so that it appears to be your own voice.",
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                        "text": "Particularly when I thought of myself as a Wallace Stevens acolyte, I wrote very difficult poetry and I was really guilty of not knowing what I was talking about. I was going for a kind of clever verbal effect. I was trying to sound linguistically or verbally interesting. I had a sense, I guess, from just reading a lot of poetry of how a poem would start and how it would end but really I didn't know what I was doing. It had very little connection to my life.",
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