Sailing Alone Around the Room: New and Selected Poems by Billy Collins
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I really like the poetry of Billy Collins. It’s whimsical, fun, and accessible. Collins writes to make us laugh, to make us reflect, and to help us simply enjoy being human beings.

Many of these poems left me with a smile on my face. The poems are imaginative, occasionally sad, and often hilarious. There’s even a poem that’s intentionally lousy—his “Paradelle for Susan.” Although three or four of the poems are too crass for me, I really enjoyed this book overall. Here were a few of my favorites:

• “Reading an Anthology of Chinese Poems of the Sung Dynasty, I Pause To Admire the Length and Clarity of Their Titles”: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetr...

• “Workshop”: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/...

• “Introduction to Poetry”: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/...

• “First Reader”: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetr...

• “Winter Syntax”: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetr...

• “The Rival Poet”: http://bnreview.barnesandnoble.com/t5...

• "The History Teacher": http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org...

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From Billy Collins' poem "The Butterfly Effect":

The one resting now on a plant stem
somewhere deep in the vine-hung
interior of South America
whose wings are about to flutter
thus causing it to rain heavily
on your wedding day
several years from now,
and spinning you down
a path to calamity and ruin
is--if it's any consolation--
a gorgeous swallowtail,
a brilliant mix of bright orange
and vivid yellow with a soft
dusting of light brown along the edges.

From Billy Collins's "The Rival Poet":

In my revenge daydream I am the one
poised on the marble staircase
high above the crowded ballroom.
A retainer in livery announces me
and the Contessa Maria Teresa Isabella
Veronica Multalier Eleganza de Bella Ferrari.

You are the one below
fidgeting in your rented tux
with some local Cindy hanging all over you.

Just discovered Billy Collins's "Advice to Writers." Lovely poem. An excerpt:

When you find your way back home
. . .
you will behold in the light of dawn
the immaculate altar of your desk,
a clean surface in the middle of a clean world.
From a small vase, sparkling blue, lift
a yellow pencil, the sharpest of the bouquet,
and cover pages with tiny sentences
like long rows of devoted ants
that followed you in from the woods.

From Sailing Alone Around the Room

Last night I came across Billy Collins's "Winter Syntax" for the first time. It begins,

A sentence starts out like a lone traveler
heading into a blizzard at midnight,
tilting into the wind, one arm shielding his face,
the tails of his thin coat flapping behind him.

There are easier ways of making sense,
the connoisseurship of gesture, for example.
You hold a girl’s face in your hands like a vase.
You lift a gun from the glove compartment
and toss it out the window into the desert heat.
All of these moments are blazing with silence.

The complete poem can be found here.