I have heard the poet Billy Collins read his own work frequently enough that when I read his poems now, I hear them in his voice. This collection takes some poems from previous collections (some I had read already, and one I had read the same day from a collection of various poets - The Poetry of Impermanence, Mindfulness, and Joy) and sprinkles in a few new poems.

I was surprised by how many of the poems were about the writing and teaching of poetry itself, but perhaps that is an indication of where Collins was in the years leading up to 2001, when it was published. But already, the dry humor, the remarks I love, are present.

I bought this for $1 at the Friends of the Library book sale and read it the same day! Now it is the last day of National Poetry Month.

My favorites this time around:

Directions
"...But it is hard to speak of these things
how the voices of light enter the body
and begin to recite their stories..."

Man in Space (listen on YouTube)

Marginalia
About the comments students leave next to poems... read it in its entirety on PoemHunter

Lines Lost Among Trees
"These are not the lines that came to me
while walking in the woods
with no pen...."

Insomnia
"Even though the house is deeply silent
and the room, with no moon,
is perfectly dark...
someone inside me will not
get off his tricycle..."

Tomes (read in its entirety on PoemHunter
"There is a section in my library for death..."

I know nothing about poetry. A bad experience in my first-year World Literature class sent me running screaming from the English Department. This doesn't mean I don't like poetry, just that I know little about it, or how to find good poetry.

But when I read s.penkevich's great review of Sailing Alone Around the Room, the poems he posted as part of that caught my attention right away, and I ordered the book from the library.

Note: The rest of this review has been withdrawn due to the changes in Goodreads policy and enforcement. You can read why I came to this decision here.

In the meantime, you can read the entire review at Smorgasbook

I fear these poems came to me at the wrong time, for objectively I can tell that they are all beautiful works and that there is very, very good reason why Collins was our poet laureate. But the thing is that this particular collection is full of a lot of poems about poems, and... well. Were it that I lived in a time where I was able to connect with poems that commented about poems instead of yearning for solace in art by connecting to experience. Billy Collins is many things, but he is not here to absolve such cosmic angst. And that is okay. That only means that I need to read him sometime in the future, which is well and good.

I love Billy Collins' poetry and this book didn't disappoint.