Billy Collins

2 weeks ago | laphamsquarterly.org | Billy Collins |Simon Winchester |Astra Taylor |Ben Tarnoff

For any teacher of poetry with the slightest interest in reducing the often high-pitched level of student anxiety, one step would be to substitute for the nagging and ultimately pointless question, “What does this poem mean?” the more manageable question “Where does this poem go?” Tracking the ways a poem moves from beginning to end puts the emphasis on the poem’s tendency to travel imaginatively and thus to carry the reader in the vehicle of its language.

Jun 4, 2024 | thedig.substack.com | Billy Collins |Francine McKenna

It is early June, a breezy and sun-riddled Tuesdaythat would quickly be forgotten were it not for mywriting these few things down as I sit here empty-headedat the typewriter with a cup of coffee, light and sweet. Tuesday, June 4th, 1991by Billy CollinsBack from a week in Chicago for family activities and some eventful happenings. In the meantime, there’s been a lot of news about things I am interested in that I did not get to write about while focused on my family and staying alive.

Apr 30, 2024 | laphamsquarterly.org | Simon Winchester |Philipp Blom |Billy Collins |Madeline Miller

The scene is a mysterious one, beguiling, thrilling, and, if you didn’t know better, perhaps even a bit menacing. According to the time-enhanced version of the story, it opens on an afternoon in the late fall of 1965, when without warning, a number of identical dark-green vans suddenly appear and sweep out from a parking lot in downtown Madison, Wisconsin. One by one they drive swiftly out onto the city streets. At first they huddle together as a convoy.