The Trouble with Poetry by Billy Collins

Billy Collins is one of my favorite poets. I really enjoy reading his poems that have touches of wry humor in them and yet still speak to serious subjects. Since April is National Poetry Month, I selected one of Collins’s poems on the subject of poetry. I hope you like this poem as much as I do. It’s entitled The Trouble with Poetry. Here’s how the poem begins:

From The Trouble with Poetry
by Billy Collins

The trouble with poetry, I realized
as I walked along the beach one night—
cold Florida sand under my bare feet,
a show of stars in the sky—

the trouble with poetry is
that it encourages the writing of more poetry,
more guppies crowding the fish tank,
more baby rabbits
hopping out of their mothers into the dewy grass.

And how will it ever end?
unless the day finally arrives
when we have compared everything in the world
to everything else in the world,

and there is nothing left to do
but quietly close our notebooks
and sit with our hands folded on our desks.


You can read the rest of the poem here: http://shiningpixel.com/edutopia_pdf/muse_collins2.pdf

Here’s a video of Collins reading his poem:

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At Wild Rose Reader, I have another extensive mask poem post with some original poems--including Sole Song--and links to resources for those interested in writing their own point-of-view poems or for teachers who’d like to do a lesson on writing mask poems in their classrooms.

At Political Verses, I have an original poem entitled A Chicken for a Checkup: A Poem about Sue Lowden.

Anastasia Suen has the Poetry Friday Roundup at Picture Book of the Day.