Poetry seen and heard

[smithpeter]

I offer this sample of something I consider wonderful.
In the U.S. we have this thing, a person, a post called Poet Laureate.
A mingle of technology and position can be viewed at the link below.
Are there other such experiences available?

Billy Collins

 

[Angeline]

Thank You For Billy

Oooooooooooh Mr. SmithPeter! I just had the most wonderful
date with Billy Collins thanks to you. I was not familiar with his poetry, so what a delicious treat it was to discover him. What a perfect poet laureate for America. All that wit, those images,the detailed observation couched in such funny, self-effacing prose. Check this out, you poets. It's goooood.

 

[karmadog]

I think you may have just made Billy Collins our most famous poet laureate since Robert Frost. Aren't you glad that the Librarian of Congress picks him rather than the President? Dr. Seuss is dead, and I don't think Bush would know any other poets.

O Sama you're dead.
O sam you are.
I do not like O sama.
O sama is dead.
Dead you are, O sama.
O sama you are.

I would not like him in Sudan.
I would not like him in Pakistan.
I do not like him Osama Laden.
I do not like him Osama Sam.

 

[Angeline]

Another Billy Collins Link

Loved the Collins reading so much, I had to find out more. The following link provides a wealth of information about him.

http://www.bigsnap.com/billy.html

 

[WickedEve]

Thanks for posting the link sp. I'll download the real player later so I can listen.
I did read one of his poems a couple of weeks ago, Another Reason I don't Keep a Gun in the House. At the time, I didn't even realize who he was.
So once again, thanks for keeping us informed!

Eve

 

[Angeline]

Introduction to Poetry

ok I am officially in love with Billy Collins.
this is all your fault SmithPeter!

look at this poem!

Introduction to Poetry

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

loved it!!!

Well, thank you very much, Smithpeter...

I can earnestly say I never had so much fun in a poetry reading before...

Mr. Billy Collins work is at a time witty, entertaining, terribly insightful and just tremendously hylarious... All real poetry should be!

(and thank you Angeline for presenting such a wonderful example of what I mean)

 

[smithpeter]

Thank you all for posting,

This thread has "worked".
Enjoy all reading and creation.
Expose what you like and love.

 

[karmadog]

more

Here are three more poems by Billy Collins:

http://www.pshares.org/Authors/authordetails.cfm?prmauthoriD=295

I particularly like "Tomes".

Interesting that in '77 Collins was working on a biography of Boz Scaggs. I don't know if he ever finished it. Would have been a short book back then, Scaggs couldn't have been but about 25.