Quote of the Day

After you find your voice, you realize there's really only one person to imitate, and that's yourself.  You do it by combining different influences.  I think the first part of it is you do slavish imitations, which are almost like travesties, you know.  But gradually you come under the right influences, picking and choosing, and being selective, and then maybe your voice is the combination of six or eight other voices that you have managed to blend in such a way that no one can recognize the sources.  You can take intimacy from Whitman, you can learn the dash from Emily Dickinson...you can pick a little bit from every writer and you combine them.  This allows you to be authentic.  That's one of the paradoxes of the writing life: that the way to originality is through imitation.

 -- Billy Collins

Quote of the Day

You know, you read a great poem in a magazine somewhere, and you just can't stand the fact that you didn't write it.  What do you do?  Well, you can't get whiteout, and blank out the poet's name and write yours in -- that's not fair.  But you can say, "Okay, I didn't write that poem, let me write a poem like that, that's sort of my version of that."  And that's basically the way you grow...

 -- Billy Collins

Quote of the Day

Read widely.  Find poets that make you envious.  And then copy them.  Try to get like them.

-- Billy Collins

Quote of the Day

Read widely, read all the poetry you can get your hands on.  And in your reading, you're searching for something.  Not so much your voice.  You're searching for poets that make you jealous.  Professors of writing call this "literary influence."  It's jealousy.  And it's with every art, whether you play the saxophone, or do charcoal drawings.  You're looking to get influenced by people who make you furiously jealous. 

-- Billy Collins

Quote of the Day

To find your voice, you need to read deeply.

 -- Billy Collins

Billy Collins:

Poetry doesn't need to keep up with the news; poetry is the news.  And the news is very simple: Life is beautiful and you are going to die.  Read all about it!

In Conversation with Billy Collins

Billy Collins:

I think there is in America a huge, mostly untapped audience for poetry.  Most people don't read poetry because they don't know what poetry is.  Since many of them have had zero contact with poetry since they left school, they have to make up reasons why they don't read it.

"In Conversation with Billy Collins"

Billy at Vandy

I look forward to witnessing 2001-2003 Poet Laureate Billy Collins read his poetry tonight at Vanderbilt University.