Billy Collins

“¿No es la poesía un megáfono pegado/ a los susurrantes labios de la muerte?”, escribe Billy Collins en uno de los poemas de La lluvia en Portugal. Y es que la conciencia del tiempo y una mirada suav

"Collins llevó la poesía a los barrios, a las estaciones de metro, a las pescaderías y a los hospitales. Se presentó frente a los desconocidos vestido de bufón o disfrazado de ladrón de bancos, con diferentes máscaras pero transmitiendo siempre una confianza que le ha valido la fortuna de ser considerado el poeta más popular de los Estados Unidos". Fernando Valverde

Navegando a solas por la habitación es una antología. La ha traducido Eduardo Moga y contiene poemas que abarcan varias páginas.

Otra vez Billy Collins, considerado por el New York Times y la crítica norteamericana en general como el poeta más popular y vendido de los Estados Unidos, nos sorprende con una nueva colección de poemas que siguen la linea que ha hecho de su poesia la mas leida y celebrada de su pais.Son mas de cincuenta poemas que muestran la peculiar habilidad del poeta para mezclar lo jovial y lo ocurrente con la gravedad y la delicadeza con que destapa temas aparentemente futiles hasta convertirlos en asuntos trascendentales de la existencia humana. Partiendo de lo familiar y cotidiano, pero utilizando sabiamente su capacidad de ingenio, fantasia e imaginacion, nos hace reflexionar sobre aquello que, habiendonos pasado desapercibido, se nos muestra con la maravillosa esencialidad necesaria para apreciar y entender destacados aspectos de la realidad humana.Estos poemas, marcados por un humor caracteristico, surgen de momentos modestos y banales, pero desentierran lo extraordinario y siniestro de lo cotidianoThe Wall Street Journal

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins comes a twelfth collection of poetry offering over fifty new poems that showcase the generosity, wit, and imaginative play that prompted The Wall Street Journal to call him Americas favorite poet. The Rain in Portugala title that admits hes not much of a rhymersheds Collinss ironic light on such subjects as travel and art, cats and dogs, loneliness and love, beauty and death. His tones range from the whimsicalthe dogs of Minneapolis . . . / have no idea theyre in Minneapolisto the elegiac in a reaction to the death of Seamus Heaney. A student of the everyday, Collins here contemplates a weather vane, a still life painting, the calendar, and a child lost at a beach. His imaginative fabrications have Shakespeare flying comfortably in first class and Keith Richards supporting the globe on his head. By turns entertaining, engaging, and enlightening, The Rain in Portugal amounts to another chorus of poems from one of the most respected and familiar voices in the world of American poetry. Praise for The Rain in Portugal Nothing in Billy Collinss twelfth book . . . is exactly what readers might expect, and thats the charm of this collection.The Washington Post This new collection shows [Collins] at his finest. . . . Certain to please his large readership and a good place for readers new to Collins to begin.Library Journal Disarmingly playful and wistfully candid.Booklist

An upcoming book to be published by Penguin Random House.

Cada poema parece abrirse de par en par, con puertas generosas, a quien quiera leerlo. Y así es. Y también ocurre que esa transparencia es mucho más opaca de lo que aparece a primera vista. De hecho, la inmensa popularidad de la poesia de Collins puede quiza no entenderse cabalmente. La suya no es poesia facil. Como el mismo ha dicho alguna vez, es poesia hospitalaria. Como el obrero que arma cigarros, Billy Collins enrolla concisamente su intuicion, plantado siempre en la atencion meticulosa a las cosas que nos pasan, que vemos, que nos llevan a pensarnos y a pensar el mundo.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From the two-term Poet Laureate of the United States Billy Collins comes his first volume of new and selected poems in twelve years.Americas favorite poet.The Wall Street JournalAimless Love combines fifty new poems with generous selections from his four most recent booksNine Horses, The Trouble with Poetry, Ballistics, and Horoscopes for the Dead. Collinss unmistakable voice, which brings together plain speech with imaginative surprise, is clearly heard on every page, reminding us how he has managed to enrich the tapestry of contemporary poetry and greatly expand its audience. His work is featured in top literary magazines such as The New Yorker, Poetry, and The Atlantic, and he sells out reading venues all across the country. Appearing regularly in The Best American Poetry series, his poems appeal to readers and live audiences far and wide and have been translated into more than a dozen languages. By turns playful, ironic, and serious, Collinss poetry captures the nuances of everyday life while leading the reader into zones of inspired wonder. In the poets own words, he hopes that his poems begin in Kansas and end in Oz. Touching on the themes of love, loss, joy, and poetry itself, these poems showcase the best work of this poet of plenitude, irony, and Augustan grace (The New Yorker).

NATIONAL BESTSELLER From the former United States Poet Laureate and New York Times bestselling author of Aimless Love, a collection of more than 125 small poems, all of them new, and each a thought or observation compressed to its emotional essenceWhenever I pick up a new book of poems, I flip through the pages looking for small ones. Just as I might have trust in an abstract painter more if I knew he or she could draw a credible chicken, I have faith in poets who can go short.Billy CollinsYou can spot a Billy Collins poem immediately. The amiable voice, the light touch, the sudden turn at the end. He "puts the fun back in profundity, says poet Alice Fulton. In his own words, his poems tend to begin in Kansas and end in Oz.Now Americas favorite poet (The Wall Street Journal) has found a new form for his unique poetic style: the small poem. Here Collins writes about his trademark themes of nature, animals, poetry, mortality, absurdity, and loveall in a handful of lines. Neither haiku nor limerick, the small poem pushes to an extreme poetrys famed power to condense emotional and conceptual meaning. Inspired by the small poetry of writers as diverse as William Carlos Williams, W.S. Merwin, Kay Ryan, and Charles Simic, and written with Collinss recognizable wit and wisdom, the poems of Musical Tables show one of our greatest poets channeling his unique voice into a new phase of his exceptional career.3:00 AMOnly my handis asleep,but its a start.

Playfulness, spare elegance, and wit epitomize the poetry of Billy Collins.With his distinct voice and accessible language, Americas two-term Poet Laureate has opened the door to poetry for countless people for whom it might otherwise remain closed. Like the present books title, Collinss poems are filled with mischief, humor, and irony, Poetry speaks to all people, it is said, but here I would like to address / only those in my own time zonebut also with quiet observation, intense wonder, and a reverence for the everyday: The birds are in their trees, / the toast is in the toaster, / and the poets are at their windows. / They are at their windows in every section of the tangerine of earththe Chinese poets looking up at the moon, / the American poets gazing out / at the pink and blue ribbons of sunrise. Through simple language, Collins shows that good poetry doesnt have to be obscure or incomprehensible, qualities that are perhaps the real trouble with most serious poetry: By now, it should go without saying / that what the oven is to the baker / and the berry-stained blouse to the drycleaner / so the window is to the poet. In this dazzling new collection, his first in three years, Collins explores boyhood, jazz, love, the passage of time, and, of course, writingthemes familiar to Collinss fans but made new here. Gorgeous, funny, and deeply empathetic, Billy Collinss poetry is a window through which we see our lives as if for the first time.

Billy Collins is one of my favourite poets in the world Carol Ann Duffy Readers will only have to open this book at random to realize the privation a life without Billy Collins has been. A writer of immense grace and humanity, Billy Collins shows how the great forces of history and nature converge on the tiniest details of our lives - and in doing so presents them in a new radiance. He is also unbelievably funny. The most popular poet in America New York Times Billy Collins writes lovely poems . . . Limpid, gently and consistently startling, more serious than they seem, they describe all the worlds that are and were and some others besides John Updike Billy Collins medium is a rare amalgam of accessibility and intelligence. Id follow this mans mind anywhere. Expect to be surprised Michael Donaghy Smart, his strings tuned and resonant, his wonderful eye looping over the things, events and ideas of the world, rueful, playful, warm voiced, easy to love E. Annie Proulx

The Trouble with Poetry is the new collection from probably the most popular poet in the entire planet, and finds everyones favourite contemporary Pre-Socratic in as funny and wise (and sometimes joyfully silly) form as ever. Billy Collinss tone is inimitable. Drawled and knowing, yet without a hint of world-weariness or cynicism, he fearlessly addresses the reader as friend and intimate -- and comrade, inviting them to square up to the various collective crises of the bald ape in the 21st century. Collins remains the only poet who can write about the next-to-nothing of our lives, the little boredoms, habits and frustrations of our daily and domestic existence, revealing their true importance and meaning -- and demonstrating that the same historical and cosmic forces bear upon them as upon the great events of the age.Billy Collins is one of my favourite poets in the worldCarol Ann DuffyId follow this mans mind anywhereMichael DonaghyBilly Collinss poems describe all the worlds that are and were and some others besidesJohn Updike

It is no understatement to say that Billy Collins has found poetry a whole new audience across the English-speaking world. No poet writing today insists on such open, direct and courteous engagement with the reader, and no poet has shown the common experience to be such an astonishing and singular one. Collins gift is to make the reader believe that everything is unfolding in real time and in living speech; his poetry always has the sheen and vibrancy of the present moment. While Ballistics addresses the most grave and serious of subjects - death and love, solitude and aging - Collins light touch and lighter spirit never desert him. Even in his darkest verses, Collins never fails to remind us of the sheer miracle, comedy and strangeness of our simply being here. The teasing, buoyant images in Ballistics are firmly anchored in visions of too-quiet mornings, droplets of water, cold marble and bare light bulbs. But he now writes, more simply and assuredly than he used to, about the flights of imagination that keep melancholy at bay . . . Ballistics glows with the confidence of a writer fully aware of his works power to delight New York Times

Billy Collins is one of the worlds most popular poets. While his poems often begin in the everyday and domestic, fans know that they might end anywhere and that they will lift their heads from the book to a world startlingly different from the one they had left moments before. Billy Collins previous collection, Taking Off Emily Dickinsons Clothes, was an extraordinary success, introducing thousands of readers to his exhilarating poetry for the first time. By turns wildly funny and intensely moving, Nine Horses has won Billy Collins even more admirers.

The New York Times BestsellerFrom former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins comes a twelfth collection of poetry offering nearly fifty new poems that showcase his trademark generosity, wit, and imaginative play.The Rain in Portugal - a title that admits hes not much of a rhymer - sheds Collinss ironic light on such subjects as travel and art, cats and dogs, loneliness and love, beauty and death. His tones range from the whimsical - the dogs of Minneapolis . . . / have no idea theyre in Minneapolis - to the elegiac in a reaction to the death of Seamus Heaney. A student of the everyday, here Collins contemplates a weathervane, a still-life painting, the calendar, and a child lost at a beach. His imaginative fabrications have Shakespeare flying comfortably in first class and Keith Richards supporting the globe on his head. By turns entertaining, engaging, and enlightening, The Rain in Portugal amounts to another chorus of poems from one of the most respected and familiar voices in the world of poetry.

"Ive grown oldnow my own namerings a bell."In each of the short poems in Billy Collinss Musical Tables, the former United States Poet Laureate tempers his characteristically jocular voice with what he calls the thrill of mortality flashes of profundity amongst the mundane, startling reminders of the wonder of being alive.Through the brevity of these poems, Collins knack for coaxing the poetry out of the everyday becomes ever more refined. Whether reflecting on mornings spent in the thicket of Los Angeles traffic, or turning over cliches on the tongue until old metaphors become new again, Musical Tables is Billy Collins at his most meditative: brief, and all the more brilliant for it.Americas favourite poet Wall Street Journal

However arresting, outlandish, or hilarious, the poems in Horoscopes for the Dead are typically prompted by the familiar things of the world: dogs, stars, food, love, and marriage as well as lifes local triumphs and disappointments, joys and shames. Collinss gift is to unlock the mysterious in the ordinary, and he is always careful to take his reader with him. Indeed, no other living poet has done more to reengage and revitalize poetrys readership, or so deservedly earned its trust. Few poets have his ability to mix bold, unadorned statements with lyric invention and imaginative richness. And here in these new poems, Collinss inimitable tone - wry, smart, funny, and wise - takes on a darker shade, as the poems declare a deep awareness of transience and mortality. The result is the revelation of a world more precious, more fragile, richer in colour and form than ever. Praise for Billy Collins A writer . . . fully aware of his works power to delight New York Times A poet of plentitude, irony, and Augustan grace New Yorker

Collins remains the most companionable of poetic companions. The New York TimesBilly Collinss poetry collection Dog Show celebrates the joy of our canine best friends, honouring the love we feel for the animals who play such vital roles in our lives.In twenty-five poems, Collins distills the many ways dogs warm our hearts, from the happiness we experience as we watch a dog run unencumbered by our burdens, to the silliness of cradling a dog in our arms as we step on the scale together. Turning his inimitable eye and ear to the complexities of dog behaviour, Collins ponders all that these winning creatures give us and what we learn from them about ourselves.For more than four decades Collins has delighted readers with his insight, wit, and clear poetic voice. In Dog Show,Americas favorite poet (The Wall Street Journal) illuminates mans best friend (sorry, cat lovers).Accompanied by Pamela Sztybels watercolours, which effortlessly depict a dogs humble grace, Dog Show reveals the profound role these majestic animals play in our lives and the meaning they give us.

Billy Collins is one of my favourite poets in the world Carol Ann DuffyIn Water, Water Billy Collins writes with joy and wonder about the beauties and ironies of everyday life. The best poems, he believes, begin in clarity and end with a hint of the sublime: A cat learns to drink from a swimming pool. An astronaut recites Emily Dickinson in space. Here is a writer devotedly in love with the world around him, fascinated by its pleasures but generously sensitive of its pains.Ever a laureate of the oblique, Collins is especially sensitive to disappearances and acts of concealment, sketching objects by the outlines their absence leaves: Everything in this hard place, reflects one voice in Crying in Class, is designed to disappear. From griefs soft echoes, to the atheist equally afraid of heaven and hell, Collins remains as keenly vigilant of the light as he does the shadows which dance at its edges.A poet of plenitude, irony, and Augustan grace The New YorkerAmong the best poems that Collins has ever written NPRWitty, wry and tender when it hurts, Water, Water is a pleasure to read and easy to give The Washington Post