180 More Extraordinary Poems for Every Day

by COLLINS, BILLY

• ISBN13: 9780812972962
• ISBN10: 0812972961
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-03-29
• Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks

Summary

Come full circle with 180 new, exciting poems selected and introduced by Billy Collins. Inspired by Billy Collins's poem-a-day program for American high schools that he began through the Library of Congress, the originalPoetry 180: A Turning Back to Poetrywas a gathering of clear, contemporary poems aimed at a wide audience. In180 More, Collins continues his ambitious mission of exposing readers of all ages to the best of today's poetry. Here are another 180 hospitable, engaging, reader-friendly poems, offering surprise and delight in a wide range of literary voicescomic, melancholy, reflective, irreverent. If poetry is the original travel literature, this anthology contains 180 vehicles ready to carry you away to unexpected places. With poems by Robert Bly Carol Ann Duffy Eamon Grennan Mark Halliday Jane Kenyon David Kirby Thomas Lux Donna Masini W. S. Merwin Paul Muldoon Carol Muske-Dukes Vijay Seshadri Naomi Shihab Nye Gerald Stern Ron Padgett Linda Pastan Victoria Redel Franz Wright Robert Wrigley and many more

Author Biography

Billy Collins is the author of twelve collections of poetry including The Rain in Portugal, Aimless Love, Horoscopes for the Dead, Ballistics, The Trouble with Poetry, Nine Horses, Sailing Alone Around the Room, Questions About Angels, The Art of Drowning, and Picnic, Lightning. He is also the editor of Poetry 180: A Turning Back to Poetry, 180 More: Extraordinary Poems for Every Day, and Bright Wings: An Illustrated Anthology of Poems About Birds. A former Distinguished Professor at Lehman College of the City University of New York, Collins served as Poet Laureate of the United States from 2001 to 2003 and as New York State Poet from 2004 to 2006. In 2016 he was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He lives in Florida with his wife Suzannah.

Table of Contents

Introduction	xiii
Billy Collins
First Hour	3	(1)
Sharon Olds
The Alien	4	(1)
Greg Delanty
Muzak	5	(1)
Kevin Young
The Floating Rib	6	(2)
Lucia Perillo
To the Dust of the Road	8	(1)
W. S. Merwin
Prayer in My Boot	9	(2)
Naomi Shihab Nye
To My Twenties	11	(2)
Kenneth Koch
Hurdles	13	(2)
Katia Kapovich
I Need to Be More French. Or Japanese	15	(2)
Beth Ann Fennelly
Waiting for My Clothes	17	(2)
Leanne O'Sullivan
Oh, What a Red Sweater	19	(3)
Alan Michael Parker
Boulevard du Montparnasse	22	(1)
Mary Jo Salter
To Stammering	23	(1)
Kenneth Koch
Trick Pear	24	(4)
Suzanne Cleary
The Albatross	28	(1)
Kate Bass
The Busses	29	(1)
Frederick Morgan
Bedecked	30	(2)
Victoria Redel
Dinner Out	32	(2)
Christopher Howell
Slow Children at Play	34	(1)
Cecilia Woloch
Soccer Moms	35	(2)
Paul Muldoon
What I Did	37	(3)
Jim Daniels
What I Want	40	(5)
George Bilgere
What I Do	45	(2)
Douglas Goetsch
Late Valentine, with Daisies	47	(4)
Kevin Stein
Tariff	51	(1)
Michelle Boisseau
Passport: A Manifesto	52	(1)
Carol Muske-Dukes
Interchanges	53	(1)
Yannis Ritsos
Machines	54	(1)
Michael Donaghy
Please Come Late	55	(2)
Hugo Williams
Romanticism	57	(3)
David Baker
The Night of the Full Moon	60	(1)
Alison Marsh Harding
Discretion	61	(1)
Robert Wrigley
In Praise of My Young Husband	62	(2)
Cathleen Calbert
The Little Flowers	64	(2)
W. S. Di Piero
Arrival	66	(1)
Michael Longley
The Foot Thing	67	(2)
Jane Routh
The Hammock	69	(2)
Cecilia Woloch
Heart's Itch	71	(2)
Rebecca Wee
Mrs Darwin	73	(1)
Carol Ann Duffy
The Russian Greatcoat	74	(1)
Theodore Deppe
Samurai	75	(1)
Ricardo Pau-Llosa
Eleven Thousand and One	76	(7)
Darcie Dennigan
Instinct	83	(2)
C. K. Williams
``Even Ornaments of Speech Are Forms of Deceit.''	85	(1)
Ron Koertge
Dorie Off to Atlanta	86	(2)
Mark Halliday
Girls, Look Out for Todd Bernstein	88	(4)
Jason Bredle
Ever After	92	(1)
Joyce Sutphen
Before the Sickness Is Official	93	(2)
J. Allyn Rosser
Crescendo	95	(2)
Leanne O'Sullivan
Wedding Ring	97	(2)
Lynne McMahon
Acceptance Speech	99	(2)
Lynn Powell
The Clasp	101	(1)
Sharon Olds
Variation on the Word Sleep	102	(2)
Margaret Atwood
In California	104	(1)
Margaret Levine
Sounds of the Day	105	(1)
Norman MacCaig
Encounter	106	(1)
Czeslaw Milosz
A Monorhyme for the Shower	107	(1)
Dick Davis
A Jacquard Shawl	108	(1)
Ted Kooser
By Daylight	109	(1)
Elizabeth Macklin
I Am Going to Start Living Like a Mystic	110	(1)
Edward Hirsch
National Cold Storage Company	111	(1)
Harvey Shapiro
Painting a Room	112	(2)
Katia Kapovich
Birthday Poem	114	(3)
Erin Murphy
The Invitations Overhead	117	(2)
Stephen Dobyns
Understudy	119	(2)
Daniel Lusk
Popular Mechanics	121	(2)
Edward Nobles
By Her Own Hand	123	(2)
Alice Fulton
Hate Poem	125	(2)
Julie Sheehan
Do You Love Me?	127	(2)
Robert Wrigley
He Told Her He Loved Her	129	(3)
Stephen Dobyns
From Woody's Restaurant, Middlebury	132	(1)
Creg Delanty
An Apology	133	(1)
F. J. Bergmann
What Kind of Fool Am I?	134	(1)
Don McKay
Why It Often Rains in the Movies	135	(2)
Lawrence Raab
Fight	137	(1)
Laurel Blossom
Slowly	138	(2)
Donna Masini
On Parting	140	(1)
Cate Marvin
Valentine	141	(2)
Carol Ann Duffy
From Blossoms	143	(1)
Li-Young Lee
Onions	144	(2)
William Matthews
Reading Hemingway	146	(1)
James Cummins
Grapefruit	147	(3)
Gerald Stern
Mishima on a Plate	150	(1)
Joey Roth
Olive Oil	151	(1)
Paul Suntup
Rest on the Flight into Egypt	152	(2)
Debora Greger
Buddha's Dogs	154	(3)
Susan Browne
The Long Meadow	157	(3)
Vijay Seshadri
The Dogs in Dutch Paintings	160	(1)
David Graham
October Cats	161	(1)
Rachel Hadas
A Display of Mackerel	162	(3)
Mark Doty
the corgis of queen elizabeth	165	(5)
Diane Wald
Salt Lick	170	(1)
May Sarton
Aanabhrandhanmar Means ``Mad About Elephants''	171	(1)
Aimee Nezhukumatathil
The Fox in the National Museum of Wales	172	(3)
Robert Minhinnick
Praise	175	(1)
Laurie Lamon
A Cowardice of Husbands	176	(5)
David Kirby
Amnesty	181	(3)
Carl Dennis
Stephen Duck and Edward Chicken	184	(2)
George Green
Ibid at the Book Party	186	(1)
Christina Daub
Reading: Winter	187	(1)
C. K. Williams
Lives of the Poets	188	(1)
Louis Simpson
Blurbs	189	(1)
Julianna Baggott
Long Afternoons	190	(1)
Adam Zagajewski
Shakespearean Sonnet	191	(1)
R. S. Gwynn
Writing on Not Writing	192	(1)
Jack Myers
The Booksigning	193	(2)
James Tate
Publication Date	195	(1)
Franz Wright
The Poetry Reading Last Night in the Royal Hibernian Hotel	196	(3)
Paul Durcan
Keats	199	(1)
Christopher Howell
Anagrammer	200	(1)
Peter Pereira
Warrant	201	(5)
Charles Bernstein
Chapter One	206	(1)
Mark Aiello
Denial	207	(1)
David Lehman
The Poet	208	(1)
Tom Wayman
What Is Written	209	(1)
John Ashbery
Famous	210	(2)
Naomi Shihab Nye
The Arm	212	(2)
Stephen Dunn
Appeal to the Grammarians	214	(2)
Paul Violi
Out There	216	(1)
Mark Perlberg
Illumination	217	(1)
Anthony Hecht
Highway 12, Just East of Paradise, Idaho	218	(1)
Robert Wrigley
Man-Made	219	(2)
Kirsten Kaschock
Mr. Dithers Explains It All to You	221	(2)
David Kirby
Snowbanks North of the House	223	(2)
Robert Bly
At the Cottage of Messer Violi	225	(2)
Paul Violi
Jeep Cherokee	227	(5)
Bruce A. Jacobs
Bad Day	232	(1)
Kay Ryan
The Cove	233	(2)
Dick Allen
La Brea	235	(1)
Glyn Maxwell
A Shadow of a Nest	236	(2)
Gary Margolis
In the Rear-View Mirror	238	(1)
Robert Shaw
Two Disappeared into a House	239	(1)
Yehuda Amichai
Yea, Though I Walk	240	(1)
Virginia Hamilton Adair
The Current	241	(2)
Mark Halliday
I Said Yes But I Meant No	243	(3)
Dean Young
Nux	246	(1)
Tom Clark
Iron Train	247	(1)
Adam Zagajewski
Long Paces	248	(1)
Timothy Steele
Passenger Pigeons	249	(1)
Robert Morgan
A Toast to the Baltimore Oriole	250	(1)
Don McKay
Windowgrave	251	(1)
Eamon Grennan
Knowledge	252	(2)
Philip Memmer
Charlie Chan Wins Again	254	(1)
Ron Padgett
Outside the Mainway Market	255	(1)
Catherine Doty
Leaving Tralee	256	(2)
Ben Howard
Local 32B	258	(1)
Michael Donaghy
Chicken	259	(2)
Kim Addonizio
Solitude	261	(2)
Kerry Hardie
To Roanoke with Johnny Cash	263	(2)
Bob Hicok
Air Larry	265	(3)
Joseph Harrison
Thomas Eakins: A Dream of Powers	268	(3)
Philip Dacey
Poem	271	(1)
Bill Knott
Nothing in That Drawer	272	(1)
Ron Podgett
Leaving the Island	273	(1)
Linda Pastan
Takeoff	274	(1)
Timothy Steele
You Can Change Your Life Through Psychic Power	275	(2)
James Tate
At the Un-National Monument Along the Canadian Border	277	(1)
William Stafford
Current	278	(1)
Stuart Dybek
Off-Track Betting	279	(2)
Ron Koertge
Unflushed Urinals	281	(1)
Donald Justice
Extinguishable	282	(1)
Bill Knott
If You Don't	283	(3)
Diane Thiel
To Help the Monkey Cross the River	286	(2)
Thomas Lux
Where Did I Leave Off?	288	(2)
Virginia Hamilton Adair
Happiness	290	(2)
Jane Kenyon
Mirrors at 4 A.M.	292	(1)
Charles Simic
In the Coffee House	293	(3)
Tony Towle
Why I Don't Take Naps in the Afternoon	296	(1)
Dan Gerber
A Traversing	297	(2)
Pattiann Rogers
Requiem	299	(2)
Abigail Gramig
Bohemian Blues	301	(1)
Philip Nikolayev
Retro Creation	302	(2)
Aidan Rooney-Cespedes
The Fate	304	(1)
Bill Knott
Reading the Obituary Page	305	(1)
Linda Pastan
Waking Late	306	(1)
Robin Robertson
The First Photograph of Hitler	307	(2)
Wislawa Szymborska
The Soldiers	309	(3)
Gregory Djanikian
Timely Enumerations Concerning Sri Lanka	312	(3)
Oliver Rice
The End and the Beginning	315	(3)
Wislawa Szymborska
Request	318	(3)
Lawrence Raab
Notes on the Contributors	321	(32)
Index of Contributors	353	(4)
Index of Titles	357	(4)
Permission Credits	361

Excerpts

First Hour
Sharon Olds


That hour, I was most myself. I had shrugged

my mother slowly off, I lay there

taking my first breaths, as if

the air of the room was blowing me

like a bubble. All I had to do

was go out along the line of my gaze and back,

out and back, on gravity’s silk, the

pressure of the air a caress, smelling on my

self her creamy blood. The air

was softly touching my skin and tongue,

entering me and drawing forth the little

sighs I did not know as mine.

I was not afraid. I lay in the quiet

and looked, and did the wordless thought,

my mind was getting its oxygen

direct, the rich mix by mouth.

I hated no one. I gazed and gazed,

and everything was interesting, I was

free, not yet in love, I did not

belong to anyone, I had drunk

no milk, yet—no one had

my heart. I was not very human. I did not

know there was anyone else. I lay

like a god, for an hour, then they came for me,

and took me to my mother.






The Alien
Greg Delanty


I’m back again scrutinising the Milky Way

of your ultrasound, scanning the dark

matter, the nothingness, that now the heads say

is chockablock with quarks & squarks,

gravitons & gravitini, photons & photinos. Our sprout,



who art there inside the spacecraft

of your ma, the time capsule of this printout,

hurling & whirling towards us, it’s all daft

on this earth. Our alien who art in the heavens,

our Martian, our little green man, we’re anxious



to make contact, to ask divers questions

about the heavendom you hail from, to discuss

the whole shebang of the beginning&end,

the pre-big-bang untime before you forget the why

and lie of thy first place. And, our friend,



to say Welcome, that we mean no harm, we’d die

for you even, that we pray you’re not here

to subdue us, that we’d put away

our ray guns, missiles, attitude and share

our world with you, little big head, if only you stay.





Waking with Russell
Don Paterson


Whatever the difference is, it all began

the day we woke up face-to-face like lovers

and his four-day-old smile dawned on him again,

possessed him, till it would not fall or waver;

and I pitched back not my old hard-pressed grin

but his own smile, or one I’d rediscovered.

Dear son, I was mezzo del’ cammin

and the true path was as lost to me as ever

when you cut in front and lit it as you ran.

See how the true gift never leaves the giver:

returned and redelivered, it rolled on

until the smile poured through us like a river.

How fine, I thought, this waking amongst men!

I kissed your mouth and pledged myself forever.





The Floating Rib
Lucia Perillo


Because a woman had eaten something

when a man told her not to. Because the man

who told her not to had made her

from another man’s bones. That’s why

men badgered the heart-side of her chest,

knowing she could not give the bone back, knowing

she would always owe them that one bone.



And you could see how older girls who knew

their catechism armed themselves against it:

with the pike end of teasing combs

they scabbarded in pocketbooks that clashed

against the jumper’s nightwatch plaid.

In the girl’s bathroom, you watched them

wield the spike in dangerous proximity to their eyes,



shepherding the bangs through which they peered

like cheetahs in an upside-downward-growing grass.

Then they’d mouth the words to “Runaway”

while they ran white lipstick round their lips,

white to announce they had no blood

so any wound would leave no trace, as Eve’s

having nothing more to lose must have made



lll her fearless. What was weird was how soon

the ordinary days started running past them

like a river, how willingly they entered it

and how they rose up on the other side. Tamed,

or god no . . . your mother: ready to settle

with whoever found the bone under her blouse

and give it over, and make a life out of the getting

back.




TO THE DUST OF THE ROAD
W. S. Merwin


And in the morning you are up again

with the way leading through you for a while

longer if the wind is motionless when

the cars reach where the asphalt ends a mile

or so below the main road and the wave

you rise into is different every time

and you are one with it until you have

made your way up to the top of your climb

and brightened in that moment of that day

and then you turn as when you rose before

in fire or wind from the ends of the earth

to pause here and you seem to drift away

on into nothing to lie down once more

until another breath brings you to birth

---

Excerpted from 180 More: Extraordinary Poems for Every Day
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.