I adore Billy Collins! I saw him "in concert" here along with Robert Hass (current and former poets laureate at the time). He was hilarious; he had a wonderful, deadpan delivery, sort of like if Bob Newhart were a bard. And I love his poems: they are so accessible and yet textured. I get so tired of out obtuse American poets.
i have to thank peter mulvey for really turning me on to collins - he'd recite "forgetfulness" and i think "i chop some parsley while listening to art blakey's version of 'three blind mice'".
I love Billy Collins. I read three of his books when I got them from the library, and I own his spoken word CD, The Best Cigarette
I was telling everyone about his for a while back in 2001. (I still think he's good and fun, but I think I've told most everybody I know by now.)
:-)
And I love that whole image of trying to get students to play with the language, tease out the feelings and images, and how they just want "to find out what it really means." My favorite professor in my English graduate work said that students at first don't do /have any deeper reading ideas, and then they get a glimmer and shoot to the other horizon, treating all the works like some jigsaw puzzle or item from The Arrow Book of Brain Teasers to be arranged, solved, and put away.
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I was telling everyone about his for a while back in 2001. (I still think he's good and fun, but I think I've told most everybody I know by now.)
:-)
And I love that whole image of trying to get students to play with the language, tease out the feelings and images, and how they just want "to find out what it really means." My favorite professor in my English graduate work said that students at first don't do /have any deeper reading ideas, and then they get a glimmer and shoot to the other horizon, treating all the works like some jigsaw puzzle or item from The Arrow Book of Brain Teasers to be arranged, solved, and put away.
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