David J Bauman

The title of this post, it should be noted, does not contain a comma. I am not asking Billy Collins to pick me up, though I imagine a car ride with the master would be fantastic. Maybe he’d compose poems out loud about the broken lines in the middle of the road, like enjambed lines of poetry.

Or maybe I should just write that one myself. Yeah, that sounds intriguing. I’ve probably ruined the poem though by talking about it out loud. I recall that being the topic of one of his pieces, from his book Ballistics, maybe?

Basically I am very behind on so many things I need to do, and in need of a pick-me-up post. For that it seemed best to turn to one of my favorite living poets. I was introducing a new friend to Billy Collins the other day and we came across this longer clip on Fora TV. Like TED videos they don’t embed well on WordPress, but it’s worth going to the link, and well worth the thirty second advet at the beginning.

Actually it’s quite excellent and you can skip around on the site using their contents guide. But if you have time to listen straight through, including the question and answer part in the latter half, I think you’ll be happy you did. It’s a great video for introducing a newbie to Mr. Collins.

And for good measure, how about a link to one of my YouTube readings that I did almost three years ago? Billy’s poem “Nightclub” is suddenly getting some new attention on my channel, and despite the poor video quality, I confess I really like my reading in that one. Not something I often say about my own work, but I actually do enjoy watching this one. Here is a night time reading of a favorite Billy Collins poem, and finally one of my favorite blog posts that I’ve done, right here. Enjoy!

A Selection of Poems by Billy Collins from City Arts & Lectures on FORA.tv

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• A Witch Reads with a Prince, and Billy Collins Visits Kings (dadpoet.wordpress.com)
• Poems in motion: Billy Collins at TED2012 (ted.com)
• Billy Collins TED Talk on Poetry (ofwhatisfoundthere.wordpress.com)