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Picnic, lightning / Billy Collins

Author
Collins, Billy
Published
Pittsburgh, Pa. : University of Pittsburgh Press, [1998]
Copyright Date
©1998
Physical Description
1 online resource (103 pages) : illustrations
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Contents
A portrait of the reader with a bowl of cereal -- Fishing on the Susquehanna in July -- To a stranger born in some distant country hundreds of years from now -- I chop some parsley while listening to Art Blakey's version of "Three blind mice" -- Afternoon with Irish cows -- Marginalia -- What I learned today -- Journal -- Some days -- Silence -- Picnic, lightning -- In the room of a thousand miles -- Morning -- Bonsai -- Splitting wood -- Shoveling snow with Buddha -- I go back to the house for a book -- After the storm -- Snow -- Moon -- Looking west -- This much I do remember -- Japan -- Victoria's Secret -- Musée des beaux arts revisited -- Lines composed over three thousand miles from Tintern Abbey -- Paradelle for Susan -- Duck/rabbit -- Egypt -- Home again -- Lines lost among trees -- The many faces of jazz -- Taking off Emily Dickinson's clothes -- The night house -- The death of the hat -- The list of ancient pastimes -- Passengers -- Serpentine -- Reincarnation and you -- Jazz and nature -- And his sextet -- Where I live -- My life -- Aristotle.
Summary
Billy Collins -- winner of a Guggenheim Fellowship, veteran of a one-hour Fresh Air interview with Terry Gross, and a guest on Garrison Keillor's Prairie Home Companion -- arrives at Random House with the poetic equivalent of a Greatest Hits album, seasoned with some wonderful new numbers. Ranging from a lament over "Forgetfulness"--"Whatever it is you are struggling to remember/it is not poised on the tip of your tongue, /not even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen"--to a love poem that starts with weighing a dog, to a definitive "Life of Riley" ("He never had a job, a family or a sore throat"), Billy Collins' poems often seem modest and homespun, until the reader finds himself suddenly dissolving into laughter or tears. As for his popularity, a recent piece in Publishers Weekly, which ran before his three-book deal with Random House was made public, will perhaps be more convincing than any editor trying to flog a book in a fact sheet could be: "In February alone, three of Collins' collections sold nearly 8000 copies ... Fresh Air/Terry Gross recently rebroadcast an hour-long interview with Collins; the following day Picnic, Lightning briefly hit #59 in Amazon.com's bestseller rankings." Billy Collins is a dynamic and popular reader. He makes between thirty and forty appearances a year. His arrival at a prominent trade publishing house will ensure an even wider audience for his poetry and will capitalize on his increasing popularity. Household name may not be too much to ask for
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ISBN
9780822991052 (electronic bk.)
0822991055 (electronic bk.)
0822940663 (acid-free paper)
9780822940661 (acid-free paper)
0822956705 (pbk. ; acid-free paper)
9780822956709 (pbk. ; acid-free paper)
View MARC record | catkey: 43165443