Billy Collins

“Collins remains the most companionable of poetic companions.” —The New York TimesBilly Collins’s Dog Show celebrates the joy of our canine best friends, honouring the love we feel for the animals who play such vital roles in our lives. In twenty-five poems, Collins distills the many ways dogs warm our hearts, from the happiness we experience as we watch a dog run unencumbered by our burdens, to the silliness of cradling a dog in our arms as we step on the scale together. Turning his inimitable eye and ear to the complexities of dog behaviour, Collins ponders all that these winning creatures give us and what we learn from them about ourselves.For more than four decades Collins has delighted readers with his insight, wit, and clear poetic voice. In Dog Show, “America’s favorite poet” (The Wall Street Journal) illuminates man's best friend (sorry, cat lovers). Accompanied by Pamela Sztybel’s watercolors, which effortlessly depict a dog’s humble grace, Dog Show reveals the profound role these majestic animals play in our lives and the meaning they give us.

In this special collection of poems inspired by dogs, former U.S. Poet Laureate and New York Times bestselling author Billy Collins captures the essence and mystery of our beloved companions--featuring striking canine portraits in watercolors by Pamela Sztybel "Collins remains the most companionable of poetic companions."--The New York Times Billy Collins's Dog Show celebrates the joy of our canine best friends, honoring the love we feel for these animals who play vital roles in so many of our lives. In twenty-five poems, Collins distills the many emotions dogs bring us, from the happiness we feel as we watch a dog trot out the door unencumbered by our burdens, to the silliness of holding a dog in our arms as we step on the scale together. Turning his inimitable eye and ear to the complexities of dog behavior, Collins ponders all that these winning creatures give us and what we learn from them about ourselves. For more than four decades Billy Collins has delighted readers with his insight, wit, and clear poetic voice. In Dog Show, "America's favorite poet" (Wall Street Journal) illuminates America's favorite pet (sorry, cat lovers). Accompanied by Pamela Sztybel's watercolors that effortlessly depict a dog's humble grace, Dog Show reveals the profound role dogs play in our lives and the meaning they give us.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER - From the former Poet Laureate of the United States and New York Times bestselling author of Aimless Love comes a wondrous new collection of poems focused on the joys and mysteries of daily life. "Among the best poems that Billy] Collins has ever written."--Maureen Corrigan, NPR "Witty, wry and tender when it hurts, Water, Water is a pleasure to read and easy to give."--The Washington Post "Collins remains the most companionable of poetic companions."--The New York TimesOne of People's Best New Books In this collection of sixty new poems, Billy Collins writes about the beauties and ironies of everyday experience. A poem is best, he feels, when it begins in clarity but ends with a whiff of mystery. In Water, Water, Collins combines his vigilant attention and respect for the peripheral to create moments of delight. Common and uncommon events are captured here with equal fascination, be it a cat leaning to drink from a swimming pool, a nurse calling a name in a waiting room, or an astronaut reciting Emily Dickinson from outer space. With his trademark lyrical informality, Collins asks us to slow down and glimpse the elevated in the ordinary, the odd in the familiar. It's no surprise that The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal both call Collins one of America's favorite poets. The Monet Conundrum Is every one of these poemsdifferent from the othershe asked himself, as the rain quieted down, or are they all the same poem, haystack after haystackat different times of day, different shadows and shades of hay?

'Billy Collins is one of my favourite poets in the world' – Carol Ann DuffyIn Water, Water Billy Collins writes with joy and wonder about the beauties and ironies of everyday life. The best poems, he believes, begin in clarity and end with a hint of the sublime: A cat learns to drink from a swimming pool. An astronaut recites Emily Dickinson in space. Here is a writer devotedly in love with the world around him, fascinated by its pleasures but generously sensitive of its pains.Ever a laureate of the oblique, Collins is especially sensitive to disappearances and acts of concealment, sketching objects by the outlines their absence leaves: ‘Everything in this hard place’, reflects one voice in ‘Crying in Class’, ‘is designed to disappear.’ From grief’s soft echoes, to the atheist equally afraid of heaven and hell, Collins remains as keenly vigilant of the light as he does the shadows which dance at its edges.‘A poet of plenitude, irony, and Augustan grace’ – The New Yorker'Among the best poems that Collins has ever written' – NPR'Witty, wry and tender when it hurts, Water, Water is a pleasure to read and easy to give' – The Washington Post

From the former Poet Laureate of the United States and New York Times bestselling author of Aimless Love comes a wondrous new collection of poems focused on the joys and mysteries of daily life. " Billy] Collins remains the most companionable of poetic companions." --The New York Times In this collection of sixty new poems, Billy Collins writes about the beauties and ironies of everyday experience. A poem is best, he feels, when it begins in clarity but ends with a whiff of mystery. In Water, Water, Collins combines his vigilant attention and respect for the peripheral to create moments of delight. Common and uncommon events are captured here with equal fascination, be it a cat leaning to drink from a swimming pool, a nurse calling a name in a waiting room, or an astronaut reciting Emily Dickinson from outer space. With his trademark lyrical informality, Collins asks us to slow down and glimpse the elevated in the ordinary, the odd in the familiar. It's no surprise that The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal both call Collins one of America's favorite poets. The Monet Conundrum Is every one of these poemsdifferent from the othershe asked himself, as the rain quieted down, or are they all the same poem, haystack after haystackat different times of day, different shadows and shades of hay?

From the former United States Poet Laureate and New York Times bestselling author of Aimless Love comes a collection of more than 125 small, incisively brilliant poems which, in his own words, â??begin in Kansas and end in Oz.â?

A wondrous collection from Billy Collins, former U.S. Poet Laureate and New York Times bestselling author of The Rain in Portugal "The poems are marked by his characteristic humor and arise out of small, banal moments, unearthing the extraordinary or uncanny in the everyday."--The Wall Street JournalWhale Day brings together more than fifty poems and showcases the deft mixing of the playful and the serious that has made Billy Collins one of our country's most celebrated and widely read poets. Here are poems that leap with whimsy and imagination, yet stay grounded in the familiar, common things of everyday experience. Collins takes us for a walk with an impossibly ancient dog, discovers the original way to eat a banana, meets an Irish spider, and even invites us to his own funeral. Sensitive to the wonders of being alive as well as the thrill of mortality, Whale Day builds on and amplifies Collins's reputation as one of America's most interesting and durable poets.

‘Funny but serious, accessible but rich in meaning, consistently surprising – the world looks slightly different after reading a Billy Collins poem. He’s a one-off, an American treasure’ Nick Laird These are poems of whimsy and imaginative acrobatics, but they are grounded in the familiar, common things of everyday experience. Collins takes us for a walk with an impossibly ancient dog, discovers the proper way to eat a banana, meets an Irish spider, and invites us to his own funeral. Facing both the wonders of being alive and the thrill of mortality, these new poems can only solidify Collins’s reputation as one of America’s most durable and interesting poets.

Aimless Love is Billy Collins’ first compilation of poems in twelve years, and a wonderful successor to his first, the bestselling Taking Off Emily Dickinson’s Clothes. Aimless Love presents more than fifty new poems together with generous selections from his four previous books. No poet writing today communicates so directly and effectively, and no living poet has managed to both enrich the tapestry of contemporary poetry and expand it so dramatically: his poems appeal to readers and live audiences across the globe, and have been translated into more than a dozen languages. By turns playful, ironic and serious, Collins’s poetry unearths the wonder in the everyday: in his own words, his poems ‘begin in Kansas and end in Oz’. Weaving the themes of love, loss, joy and poetry itself, these poems showcase the best work of this ‘poet of plenitude, irony, and Augustan grace’.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - From former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins comes a twelfth collection of poetry offering over fifty new poems that showcase the generosity, wit, and imaginative play that prompted The Wall Street Journal to call him "America's favorite poet." The Rain in Portugal--a title that admits he's not much of a rhymer--sheds Collins's ironic light on such subjects as travel and art, cats and dogs, loneliness and love, beauty and death. His tones range from the whimsical--"the dogs of Minneapolis . . . / have no idea they're in Minneapolis"--to the elegiac in a reaction to the death of Seamus Heaney. A student of the everyday, Collins here contemplates a weather vane, a still life painting, the calendar, and a child lost at a beach. His imaginative fabrications have Shakespeare flying comfortably in first class and Keith Richards supporting the globe on his head. By turns entertaining, engaging, and enlightening, The Rain in Portugal amounts to another chorus of poems from one of the most respected and familiar voices in the world of American poetry. Praise for The Rain in Portugal "Nothing in Billy Collins's twelfth book . . . is exactly what readers might expect, and that's the charm of this collection."--The Washington Post "This new collection shows Collins] at his finest. . . . Certain to please his large readership and a good place for readers new to Collins to begin."--Library Journal "Disarmingly playful and wistfully candid."--Booklist

The New York Times BestsellerFrom former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins comes a twelfth collection of poetry offering nearly fifty new poems that showcase his trademark generosity, wit, and imaginative play.The Rain in Portugal - a title that admits he's not much of a rhymer - sheds Collins's ironic light on such subjects as travel and art, cats and dogs, loneliness and love, beauty and death. His tones range from the whimsical - 'the dogs of Minneapolis . . . / have no idea they're in Minneapolis' - to the elegiac in a reaction to the death of Seamus Heaney. A student of the everyday, here Collins contemplates a weathervane, a still-life painting, the calendar, and a child lost at a beach. His imaginative fabrications have Shakespeare flying comfortably in first class and Keith Richards supporting the globe on his head. By turns entertaining, engaging, and enlightening, The Rain in Portugal amounts to another chorus of poems from one of the most respected and familiar voices in the world of poetry.

This book is sure to capture the imaginations of young readers. A charmingly illustrated poem by former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins takes us on a journey that features magical transformations and makes a nautical adventure out of the act of reading. The interplay between the pictures and the poetry dramatizes how reading can transport us from our own familiar world into the fantastic world of a book. The boy in the boat stands for every reader and every child. Billy Collins is the author of a dozen books of poetry and was called America's most popular poet by the New York Times. He served as U. S. Poet Laureate 2001-2003, and the New York Public Library named him a Literary Lion. This is his first book designed for children.Karen loves the ocean so much that as a little girl decided she would be a mermaid. That didn't work out. Instead she followed her other love, art. Karen and her family live in historic Clinton, New Jersey. They vacation every year at the Jersey Shore where Karen spends most days on the beach painting... Hoping to one day at least see a mermaid! Voyage is Karen's debut as a picture book illustrator.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "America's favorite poet."--The Wall Street JournalFrom the two-term Poet Laureate of the United States Billy Collins comes his first volume of new and selected poems in twelve years. Aimless Love combines fifty new poems with generous selections from his four most recent books--Nine Horses, The Trouble with Poetry, Ballistics, and Horoscopes for the Dead. Collins's unmistakable voice, which brings together plain speech with imaginative surprise, is clearly heard on every page, reminding us how he has managed to enrich the tapestry of contemporary poetry and greatly expand its audience. His work is featured in top literary magazines such as The New Yorker, Poetry, and The Atlantic, and he sells out reading venues all across the country. Appearing regularly in The Best American Poetry series, his poems appeal to readers and live audiences far and wide and have been translated into more than a dozen languages. By turns playful, ironic, and serious, Collins's poetry captures the nuances of everyday life while leading the reader into zones of inspired wonder. In the poet's own words, he hopes that his poems "begin in Kansas and end in Oz." Touching on the themes of love, loss, joy, and poetry itself, these poems showcase the best work of this "poet of plenitude, irony, and Augustan grace" (The New Yorker). Envoy Go, little book, out of this house and into the world, carriage made of paper rolling toward town bearing a single passenger beyond the reach of this jittery pen and far from the desk and the nosy gooseneck lamp. It is time to decamp, put on a jacket and venture outside, time to be regarded by other eyes, bound to be held in foreign hands. So off you go, infants of the brain, with a wave and some bits of fatherly advice: stay out as late as you like, don't bother to call or write, and talk to as many strangers as you can. Praise for Aimless Love " Billy Collins] is able, with precious few words, to make me cry. Or laugh out loud. He is a remarkable artist. To have such power in such an abbreviated form is deeply inspiring."--J. J. Abrams, The New York Times Book Review "His work is poignant, straightforward, usually funny and imaginative, also nuanced and surprising. It bears repeated reading and reading aloud."--The Plain Dealer "Collins has earned almost rock-star status. . . . He knows how to write layered, subtly witty poems that anyone can understand and appreciate--even those who don't normally like poetry. . . . The Collins in these pages is distinctive, evocative, and knows how to make the genre fresh and relevant."--The Christian Science Monitor "Collins's new poems contain everything you've come to expect from a Billy Collins poem. They stand solidly on even ground, chiseled and unbreakable. Their phrasing is elegant, the humor is alive, and the speaker continues to stroll at his own pace through the plainness of American life."--The Daily Beast " Collins's] poetry presents simple observations, which create a shared experience between Collins and his readers, while further revealing how he takes life's everyday humdrum experiences and makes them vibrant."--The Times Leader

Richard Brautigan's wonderfully zany, hilarious episodic novel set amongst the rural waterways of America.Here's a journey that begins at the foot of the Benjamin Franklin statue in San Francisco's Washington Square, wanders through the wonders of America's rural waterways and ends, inevitably, with mayonnaise. With pure inventiveness and free-wheeling energy, the counterpoint to all those angry Beatniks, Brautigan tells the story of rural America, and the hunt for a bit of trout fishing. Funny, wild and sweet, Trout Fishing in America is an incomparable guidebook to the delights of exploration - of a country and a mind.

WINNER--BEST POETRY--GOODREADS CHOICE AWARDS NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NEWSWEEK/THE DAILY BEAST NATIONAL BESTSELLER Billy Collins is widely acknowledged as a prominent player at the table of modern American poetry. And in this smart, lyrical, and mischievous collection of poetry, which covers the everlasting themes of love and loss, youth and aging, solitude and union, Collins's verbal gifts are on full display.

However arresting, outlandish, or hilarious, the poems in Horoscopes for the Dead are typically prompted by the familiar things of the world: dogs, stars, food, love, and marriage as well as life's local triumphs and disappointments, joys and shames. Collins's gift is to unlock the mysterious in the ordinary, and he is always careful to take his reader with him. Indeed, no other living poet has done more to reengage and revitalize poetry's readership, or so deservedly earned its trust. Few poets have his ability to mix bold, unadorned statements with lyric invention and imaginative richness. And here in these new poems, Collins's inimitable tone - wry, smart, funny, and wise - takes on a darker shade, as the poems declare a deep awareness of transience and mortality. The result is the revelation of a world more precious, more fragile, richer in colour and form than ever. Praise for Billy Collins ‘A writer . . . fully aware of his work’s power to delight’ New York Times ‘A poet of plentitude, irony, and Augustan grace’ New Yorker