Aimless Love: A Selection of Poems Author: | Language: English | ISBN:
B00F989OOG | Format: EPUB
Aimless Love: A Selection of Poems Description
DIGITAL EXCLUSIVE: Includes 5 additional poems only available on the digital download.
?Billy Collins puts the `fun? back in `profundity.? ? - Alice Fulton
From the two-term Poet Laureate of the United States Billy Collins comes his first compilation of new and selected poems in 12 years. Aimless Love combines new poems with selections from four previous 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 with every word, 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).
- Audible Audio Edition
- Listening Length: 1 hour and 24 minutes
- Program Type: Audiobook
- Version: Unabridged
- Publisher: Random House Audio
- Audible.com Release Date: October 22, 2013
- Language: English
- ASIN: B00F989OOG
Former US Poet Laureate Billy Collins regularly reads to standing-room audiences, and reading his poems, it's not hard to see why. They reward multiple levels of interpretation, unpack hidden implications in seemingly undistinguished moments, and wink sly humor at playfully receptive readers. But there's a moment in this collection where a switch flips unexpectedly. This produces a book that starts strong, but ends on a surprisingly flat, tired-sounding note.
Collins' longtime readers know his familiar arc: an ordinary moment on an ordinary day triggers a Proustian connection, seemingly sudden but wholly consistent. Perhaps memory intrudes, or ruminations run wild--a quote from a writing text imbues a moment with unanticipated urgency, or an ancient photo in a modern building creates a discordance Collins can't easily reconcile. Sometimes he just starts thinking, and the results surprise even himself:
"Writing in the Afterlife"
...
I had heard about the journey to the other side
and the clink of the final coin
in the leather purse of the man holding the oar,
but how could anyone have guessed
that as soon as we arrived
we would be asked to describe the place
and to include as much detail as possible--
not just the water, he insists
rather the oily, fathomless, rat-happy water,
not simply the shackles, but the rusty,
iron, ankle-shredding shackles...
While scholarly poets vanish into themselves, equating incomprehensibility with depth, Collins recognizes who reads his work. The baker doesn't bake the bread he wants to bake, but the bread his customers need to eat. No wonder, in a crowded poetry market, readers seek Collins out.
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