But there is hope for you to still discover the literary world. For the student who was scared away from poetry by horrible English teachers, I recommend a healthy diet of Billy Collins.
Who is Billy Collins, you ask? He’s the poet who turned me from a poetry-hater into a poet. In my senior year of high school, I picked up a copy of his book, Nine Horses, which changed my literary life around.
His poems are extremely lucid and work on two levels: if you’re a literary snob, there are plenty of allusions in there for you to ponder over. If you’re a poetry simpleton who can barely pronounce Shakespeare, you’ll still be able to sift through these poems without consulting Google to decipher a literary reference.
Fondren has most of Billy Collins’ slim volumes. They’re not too long, and they’re not too dense. Check them out, and maybe you’ll fall in love with literature all over again.
Full disclosure and shameless advertisement: I have a poem coming out in R2, the Rice University literary magazine, this spring. Check it out if you dare.
Who is Billy Collins, you ask? He’s the poet who turned me from a poetry-hater into a poet. In my senior year of high school, I picked up a copy of his book, Nine Horses, which changed my literary life around.
His poems are extremely lucid and work on two levels: if you’re a literary snob, there are plenty of allusions in there for you to ponder over. If you’re a poetry simpleton who can barely pronounce Shakespeare, you’ll still be able to sift through these poems without consulting Google to decipher a literary reference.
Fondren has most of Billy Collins’ slim volumes. They’re not too long, and they’re not too dense. Check them out, and maybe you’ll fall in love with literature all over again.
Full disclosure and shameless advertisement: I have a poem coming out in R2, the Rice University literary magazine, this spring. Check it out if you dare.
I like this guy! I like the way he reads his own poetry without taking himself too seriously. Thanks for the tip, I'll check out more of his work.
ReplyDeleteThat poem that he read was great. I'll have to check out more of his stuff.
ReplyDelete