NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the former Poet Laureate of the United States and
New York Times
bestselling author of
Aimless Love
comes a wondrous new collection of poems focused on the joys and mysteries of daily life.
“Among the best poems that [Billy] Collins has ever written.”—Maureen Corrigan, NPR
“Witty, wry and tender when it hurts,
Water
,
is a pleasure to read and easy to give.”—
The Washington Post
“Collins remains the most companionable of poetic companions.”
—The New York Times
One of
People
’s Best New Books
In this collection of sixty new poems, Billy Collins writes about the beauties and ironies of everyday experience. A poem is best, he feels, when it begins in clarity but ends with a whiff of mystery.
In
Water, Water
, Collins combines his vigilant attention and respect for the peripheral to create moments of delight. Common and uncommon events are captured here with equal fascination, be it a cat leaning to drink from a swimming pool, a nurse calling a name in a waiting room, or an astronaut reciting Emily Dickinson from outer space. With his trademark lyrical informality, Collins asks us to slow down and glimpse the elevated in the ordinary, the odd in the familiar. It’s no surprise that
The New York Times
and
The Wall Street Journal
both call Collins one of America’s favorite poets.
The Monet Conundrum
Is every one of these poems
different from the others
he asked himself,
as the rain quieted down,
or are they all the same poem,
haystack after haystack
at different times of day,
different shadows and shades of hay?