Questions About Angels

by Collins, Billy

• ISBN13: 9780822942115
• ISBN10: 0822942119
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-03-01
• Publisher: Univ of Pittsburgh Pr

Summary

Over the past decade, Billy Collins has emerged as the most beloved American poet since Robert Frost, garnering critical acclaim and broad popular appeal. To celebrate his years as U.S. Poet Laureate, we are pleased to announce these special, limited editions, in hardcover, of the book that helped establish and secure his reputation during the 1990s. Collin's poetry has been described by Gerald Stern as "heartbreakingly beautiful." Annie Proulx admits, "I have never before felt possessive about a poet, but I am fiercely glad that Billy Collins is ours." John Updike proclaims of these poems: "consistently starling, more serious than they seem, they describe all the world that are and were and some others besides." Everyone has a favorite Collins poem, whether it is his resigned meditation on "Forgetfulness" (Questions About Angels, 1991), his affectinate riff on his mechanic's calendars in "Pinup" (The Art of Drowning, 1995), his delight in "Taking Off Emily Dickinson's Clothes" (Picnic, Lightning, 1998), or any number of others about his dog; listening to jazz,

Author Biography

Billy Collins, named U.S. Poet Laureate in June 2001 and reappointed to the post in 2002, has published seven collections of poetry, A professor of English at Lehman College of the City University of New York, he lives in Somers, New York

Table of Contents

American Sonnet	3	(22)
A History of Weather	5	(2)
First Reader	7	(2)
Student of Clouds	9	(2)
Candle Hat	11	(2)
The Death of Allegory	13	(2)
Reading Myself to Sleep	15	(2)
The Norton Anthology of English Literature	17	(2)
The Hunt	19	(1)
Forgetfulness	20	(5)
Questions About Angels	25	(16)
A Wonder of the World	27	(2)
Mappamundi	29	(2)
The First Geniuses	31	(2)
The Afterlife	33	(2)
The Dead	35	(1)
Endangered	36	(1)
Going Out for Cigarettes	37	(4)
Purity	41	(26)
Cliche	43	(1)
Field Guide	44	(1)
Putti in the Night	45	(2)
The Man in the Moon	47	(1)
Horseman, Pass By!	48	(2)
Memento Mori	50	(1)
The Last Man on Earth	51	(1)
Come Running	52	(1)
Modern Peasant	53	(1)
Instructions to the Artist	54	(2)
Weighing the Dog	56	(1)
One Life to Live	57	(1)
The Wires of the Night	58	(2)
Axiom	60	(1)
Vade Mecum	61	(1)
Not Touching	61	(1)
Night Sand	62	(1)
Love in the Sahara	63	(1)
Invective	64	(3)
The Life of Riley: A Definitive Biography	67	(26)
Jack	68	(2)
Metamorphosis	70	(1)
Saturday Morning	71	(1)
Late Show	72	(2)
Pie Man	74	(1)
Wolf	75	(2)
The History Teacher	77	(2)
Pensee	79	(2)
The Discovery of Scat	81	(1)
Dog	82	(1)
The Willies	83	(2)
On Reading in the Morning Paper That Dreams May Be Only Nonsense	85	(2)
Rip Van Winkle	87	(1)
English Country House	88	(2)
Nostalgia	90	(3)
Acknowledgments	93