By clarity I don't mean that we're always in kind of a simple area where everything is clear and comforting and understood. Clarity is certainly a way toward disorientation because if you don't start out - if the reader isn't grounded, if the reader is disoriented in the beginning of the poem, then the reader can't be led astray or disoriented later.
Billy CollinsThe really authentic thing about humor is that anyone can pretend to be serious. Anyone who's ever had a job - in fact, we're pretending to be serious now, more or less.
Billy CollinsI thought originally when I was in school and I wanted to be a poet, I knew that poets seemed to be miserable.
Billy CollinsA motto I've adopted is, if at first you don't succeed, hide all evidence that you ever tried.
Billy CollinsI write with a Uni-Ball Onyx Micropoint on nine-by-seven bound notebooks made by a Canadian company called Blueline. After I do a few drafts, I type up the poem on a Macintosh G3 and then send it out the door.
Billy Collins