Billy Collins Written Quotations

The poets who have written the best poems about war seem to be the poets whose countries have experienced an invasion or vicious dictatorships.

Attempts to put my poems to music have had disastrous results in all cases. And the poem, if it's written with the ear, already has been set to its own verbal music as it was composed.

I don't think I've ever written a poem whose intention was just to be funny. I've written poems that start out funny and often shift into something more serious.