Listeners are kind of ambushed. . . if a poem just happens to be said when they're listening … - Billy Collins

Same topic Authors

Quote of the day

What if I don’t like adventure? Then cultivate a taste for it. Take a chance. That’s how you grow.

Billy Collins

Listeners are kind of ambushed. . . if a poem just happens to be said when they're listening to the radio. The listener doesn't have time to deploy what I call their 'poetry deflector shields' that were installed in high school - there's little time to resist the poem.

Listener, Listening, Radio, School, Shields

Same Author Quotes

One of the ridiculous aspects of being a poet is the huge gulf between how seriously we take ourselves and how generally we are ignored by everybody else.

Differences, Everybody, Gulf, Poetry, Self, Take

But tomorrow, dawn will come the way I picture her, barefoot and disheveled, standing outside my window in one of the fragile cotton dresses of the poor. She will look in at me with her thin arms extended, offering a handful of birdsong and a small cup of light.

Bird, Come, Light, Look, Offering, Way

A motto I've adopted is, if at first you don't succeed, hide all evidence that you ever tried.

Adopted, Firsts, Hide, Motto, Succeed

Poetry is like standing on the edge of a lake on a moonlit night and the light of the moon is always pointing straight at you.

Edge, Lake, Lakes, Moon, Night, Poetry

But my heart is always propped up in a field on its tripod, ready for the next arrow.

Arrows, Fields, Heart, Propped, Ready, Tripod