In Nine Horses, Billy Collins, America’s Poet Laureate for 2001–2003, continues his delicate negotiation between the clear and the myst...
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Mar 17, 2011
Gavin
rated it: 
Let me start by saying: I KNOW ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ABOUT POETRY! In grad school I intentionally steered clear of any class that had to analyze poetry in any aspect. It’s not that I was afraid of the work; it was more that the work overwhelmed me. How does one exactly go about analyzing the thoughts of a person when the words are directed at allusions and people and places and times that the reader may have little to no knowledge of?
Years have passed since my chickening out, and I More...
Years have passed since my chickening out, and I More...
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Dec 09, 2008
David
rated it:
litany
"you are the bread and the knife,
the crystal goblet and the wine."
-- jacques crickillon
you are the bread and the knife,
the crystal goblet and the wine.
you are the dew on the morning grass,
and the burning wheel of the sun.
you are the white apron of the baker
and the marsh birds suddenly in flight.
however, you are not the wind in the orchard,
the plums on the counter,
or the house of cards.
and you are cert More...
"you are the bread and the knife,
the crystal goblet and the wine."
-- jacques crickillon
you are the bread and the knife,
the crystal goblet and the wine.
you are the dew on the morning grass,
and the burning wheel of the sun.
you are the white apron of the baker
and the marsh birds suddenly in flight.
however, you are not the wind in the orchard,
the plums on the counter,
or the house of cards.
and you are cert More...
Jan 10, 2011
Sarah
rated it: 
I am truly mystified why this guy is "the most popular poet in America," according to the New York Times. His poems are like making a great to-do about hopping around in a tiny circle, or like reading someone's tweets narrating what they had for breakfast. His poems are all very brief snapshots, without much that provides any kind of resonance. They are easy to understand, which is perhaps the reason why they are "popular," but I didn't get much out of the read. Collins leans
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Oct 10, 2010
Angie
rated it:
I'd loved the few Billy Collins' poems I had read, but I hadn't read many. One evening last week I was hanging around my parents' house, sitting on a porch swing in the back yard while the children played in the sand when it occurred to me that I was enjoying a rather idyllic moment, but that it would be better if I had a book. So I wandered in the house, found a book case, and picked out _Nine Horses_. (I'm sure it's yours, Laurie, but I've stolen it now; you can steal it back though.) So I'
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Sep 25, 2009
Kasandra
rated it:
Michael Ferch's "Description" of this book in the synopsis here is cruel and shitty. "Banal?" "Little music?" Whatever, dude. You just can't hear his music, and you wouldn't know a good poem if it came up and bit you in the ass. Billy Collins gets bashed by a lot of people, but why? Is it a crime to write poetry that appeals to a wide audience, that doesn't scream at you, that speaks plainly, that says "I am a human being and that means I am simple and complex,
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Mar 01, 2009
Cheryl
rated it: 
He is called "sensible and gifted," and I have to laugh; I bet not many poets want to be called sensible, I imagine they are looking for more flowery adjectives like passionate or brilliant. But these poems aren't really either, they are, well, sensible. But gifted! I like his imagery:
"But my heart is always propped up
in a field on its tripod
ready for the next arrow." Aimless Love
"As one bucket after another
of warm water was More...
"But my heart is always propped up
in a field on its tripod
ready for the next arrow." Aimless Love
"As one bucket after another
of warm water was More...
May 23, 2011
Toni
rated it:
I'd read all of Collins's collections except for this one and the most recent.
I can say I enjoyed the book in a very general way, but I'm left thinking: Hmmm... Isn't this a little dumbed-down? Is it really what I think of when I think (eek!) "poetry"? I generally like early Collins better than later Collins. He seems to be one poet who has not improved with writing or with age. Just my opinion. I preferred the earlier sections of this collection. By section IV, I'd lost s More...
I can say I enjoyed the book in a very general way, but I'm left thinking: Hmmm... Isn't this a little dumbed-down? Is it really what I think of when I think (eek!) "poetry"? I generally like early Collins better than later Collins. He seems to be one poet who has not improved with writing or with age. Just my opinion. I preferred the earlier sections of this collection. By section IV, I'd lost s More...
Mar 10, 2009
Tracy
rated it: 
If you're debating about reading Billy Collins, or any poetry for that matter, you MUST check him out. Here's a sample to show you that poetry can be beautiful, but funny, too (I was reading this in bed, and laughed out loud -- actually woke my husband -- because I could just SEE this little mouse...):
"The Country"
I wondered about you
when you told me never to leave
a box of wooden, strike-anywhere matches
lying around the house because the mice
More...
"The Country"
I wondered about you
when you told me never to leave
a box of wooden, strike-anywhere matches
lying around the house because the mice
More...
Jul 01, 2008
Graydon
rated it:
I love Billy Collins! I have read most of this book, I like to pick it up now and again when I need to be reminded of what honest and uninhibited writing is like. Some of the poems I have read multiple times others I have yet to read.
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Feb 22, 2009
Ariel
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I first heard Billy Collins' poetry on A Prairie Home Companion and liked it so much that I rushed to the library to get this book, which I enjoyed so much I then went to Barnes and Noble and bought it. He has such a vivid way of portraying everyday moments in such a way that it's as if you've never really seen them before, whether it's a glimpse of love or roadkill. Here's the start of the roadkill poem: Even though I managed to swerve around the lump/of the groundhog lying on its back on the road
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Nov 17, 2010
Racie
rated it:
I first discovered this volume while loitering in a bookstore. I had never read Billy Collins. He was at the end of his tenure as Poet Laureate and had just published "Nine Horses". My quick glance through in the bookstore convinced me that I would enjoy the book so I jotted it down and requested it for my birthday. I was not disappointed. Not only has Collins grown to be one of my favorite modern poets but "Nine Horses" remains one of his best volumes.
"N More...
"N More...
Jul 30, 2010
Cindy
rated it:
Generation after generation,
we shoulder forward
under the play of clouds
until we high-step off the sharp lip into space.
So I should not have to remind you
that little time is given here
to rest on a wayside bench,
to stop and bend to the wildflowers,
or to study a bird on a branch ---
Not when the young
keep shoving from behind,
not when the old are tugging us forward,
pulling on our arms with all their feeble strength.
From More...
we shoulder forward
under the play of clouds
until we high-step off the sharp lip into space.
So I should not have to remind you
that little time is given here
to rest on a wayside bench,
to stop and bend to the wildflowers,
or to study a bird on a branch ---
Not when the young
keep shoving from behind,
not when the old are tugging us forward,
pulling on our arms with all their feeble strength.
From More...
Mar 05, 2010
Kristopher
rated it:
Billy Collins has a dry sense of humor and a talent for capturing the essence of a thing in one or two lines. That shows through in some of these poems, but all in all, the collection is too pleasant to be very interesting. I hate the idea that writers must be tortured and miserable to create anything worth reading--they don't--but too many of these poems revolve around the meandering thoughts of an upper-class, over-educated, middle-aged, and above all deeply self-satisfied man. There's just no
More...
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Feb 04, 2012
Annie
rated it:
Nine Horses is a collection of poetry for those of us who have attained some of the patience and wisdom that come with middle age. "We must always look at things from the point of view of eternity," he says in "Velocity," and the book is a celebration of the subtlety of life, the beauty in inanimate objects we normally take for granted and those moments in time absent of the drama humans seem to crave - romance, riches, the thrill of victory.
If the poet were young More...
If the poet were young More...
Sep 29, 2011
Hansen
rated it:
Reading Nine Horses was the first time I've ever gone immediately online to order the rest of an author's works. It's as good as poetry can get for someone who appreciates poetry without any formal study! Collins has an impeccable style, longer poems than Dickinson (which can just scroll by), but short enough to keep full attention for the MTV generation. Shakespeare might push layers of meaning onto single words, but Collins has an uncanny way of using a straightfoward line that means one thing
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Jan 05, 2009
Zinta
rated it:
"...now I am wondering if you are even listening/and why I bother to tell you these things/that will never make a difference..." (from "Night Letter to a Reader," B. Collins)
But they do. They do make a difference. Perhaps it is not what Billy Collins is saying that is important so much as how he says it -- with the courage of simplicity. He speaks in words that resonate like music in the heart, not as symphonies or brass bands, but with the smoky blues of a darkne More...
But they do. They do make a difference. Perhaps it is not what Billy Collins is saying that is important so much as how he says it -- with the courage of simplicity. He speaks in words that resonate like music in the heart, not as symphonies or brass bands, but with the smoky blues of a darkne More...
Jun 19, 2007
Casey
rated it:
Billy Collins is a joy to read; beautiful, poignant, lighthearted, intelligent, all at once. Like listening to a more lyrical version of your favorite Uncle, or family friend tell a story at the end of a big dinner by candlelight.
I saw him at a poetry reading in Manchester, VT in an old church with about 50 other people, including my father and sister. Dana and I were too shy to go with our Dad to have BC sign our books, so we stood outside in the church parking lot and watched the More...
I saw him at a poetry reading in Manchester, VT in an old church with about 50 other people, including my father and sister. Dana and I were too shy to go with our Dad to have BC sign our books, so we stood outside in the church parking lot and watched the More...
Dec 25, 2008
David
rated it:
Lyric poetry, due to the simplicity, is both elegant and very personal. There is no room to describe in detail - the images must resonate, and they resonate with each person differently.
Billy Collins doesn't generally resonate with me. I liked nearly all these poems, in a mild way, but only one or two caught my attention in more than a passing way, and only a single line really stood out ("There is no way you are the pine-scented air"). Worth reading, though.
Billy Collins doesn't generally resonate with me. I liked nearly all these poems, in a mild way, but only one or two caught my attention in more than a passing way, and only a single line really stood out ("There is no way you are the pine-scented air"). Worth reading, though.
Dec 16, 2011
Jen
rated it:
So, Billy Collins kept coming up in people's facebook statuses, on the shelves at work, and I finally said, ok, I'll read some. This book was great! I'm really excited to read Sailing Alone Around the Room now. I think my favorite poem was Velocity, or possibly Death in New Orleans, A romance, or Study in Orange and White or Birthday or The Country (was really really my favorite, because poems about mice are great!). I kept reading bits aloud! Thanks Billy.
Mar 10, 2010
Lacey
rated it:
What I learned from this book of poetry is that you don't have to write obscure poems with metaphors that no one will understand but the writer.
pg 101: No Time
In a rush this weekday morning,
I tap the horn as I speed past the cemetery
where my parents are buried
side by side under a smooth slab of granite.
Then, all day long, I think of him rising up
to give me that look
of knowing disapproval
while my mother calmly tells him to lie back down.
pg 101: No Time
In a rush this weekday morning,
I tap the horn as I speed past the cemetery
where my parents are buried
side by side under a smooth slab of granite.
Then, all day long, I think of him rising up
to give me that look
of knowing disapproval
while my mother calmly tells him to lie back down.
Oct 24, 2010
Tam
rated it:
For Christmas 2009 my dear husband gave me this and two other Billy Collins books of poetry because he'd heard him interviewed or reading poetry on NPR. Billy is cheeky, he's irreverant - but it's fun because poetry doesn't always have to feel like a rainy day. He's refreshing and light - not light like meaningless but light like spa food after eating too much meat. You feel good, you feel like you have consumed a healthy dose of levity.
May 11, 2009
Heather
rated it: 
One may wonder why I have this book if it only garnered one star. There are two reasons: one, it was a gift and I always feel guilty selling gifts. Two, sometimes I like to remind myself of just how wide the chasm is between the poetry I like/write and the poetry that is popular. I am sure Mr. Collins is a wonderful person, and I know his work means a lot to many people, but it's really not for me.
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Dec 21, 2010
You know the parlor trick.
wrap your arms around your own body
and from the back it looks like
someone is embracing you
her hands grasping your shirt
her fingernails teasing your neck
from the front it is another story
you never looked so alone
your crossed elbows and screwy grin
you could be waiting for a tailor
to fit you with a straight jacket
one that would hold you really tight.
wrap your arms around your own body
and from the back it looks like
someone is embracing you
her hands grasping your shirt
her fingernails teasing your neck
from the front it is another story
you never looked so alone
your crossed elbows and screwy grin
you could be waiting for a tailor
to fit you with a straight jacket
one that would hold you really tight.
Mar 11, 2010
Hollie
rated it:
Possibly my all-time favorite book of poetry. I adore 'Aimless Love', which is about falling in love with mundane things. A bird on a branch, the dappled sunlight under that tree, a seamstress in a window, anything that gives you the momentary warmth of pleasure. Love without expectation. I read this book whenever I'm in a particularly bad mood, and it never fails me.
May 17, 2010
John
rated it:
This is what happens when a writer becomes a parody of his or herself. Billy Collins' stuff was charming and refreshing enough to get away with writing the same two or three poems over and over again for several books. However, a second decade of poems about wine, jazz, and laid-back Italian vacations tries one's patience.
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Aug 19, 2009
Lauren
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my first exposure to billy collins, recommended by a friend. he uses simple language and the tone is conversational but he still surprises and even delighted me. he is good. and very witty. maybe too witty. sometimes it seems smug but i can't help but enjoy it.
Apr 13, 2010
Doreen
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I'd forgotten I owned this book when I reviewed Good Poems. I do remember that I did not enjoy it as much as I thought I would the first time, but my second reading of it was much more appreciative, and reminded me of why he'd earned the title Poet Laureate.
Jun 13, 2009
Tom
rated it:
I'm trying to learn a little something about poetry, since my senses tell me this is important to the writer's craft. It is slow going. I gave this only two stars, not because I think it is a bad book, but because I am still struggling to understand the art.
Aug 01, 2010
kyliemm
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I didn't love this collection as much as some of Collins' more recent ones, but it was still enjoyable to read. His poetry is just so readable, and hearing his voice in your head is just a treat. Really. I'm glad I picked this up.
Aug 04, 2011
Rhonda
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I heard this poet on NPR, and loved the poems he shared from his most recent book, so I picked this up. This is the kind of poetry I enjoy--he articulates random thoughts and inspires feelings that are difficult to express.
