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poetry

Billy Collins virtual poetry reading and discussion set for Dec. 3

November 23, 2020 - Harry Ransom Center

whale day book cover

Billy Collins is one of the most widely read poets in America, and his witty, conversational poems illuminate the poignant details that often go unnoticed in everyday life. Within his archive at the Ransom Center are notebooks, drafts, proofs, and other documents relating to his poetry, essays, and other published works. His archive includes travel diaries, datebooks, sketchbooks and drawings, childhood writings, teaching materials, correspondence, and other materials that document his life ad career.

On Dec. 3, 2020, tune in to hear this celebrated poet read from his new collection, Whale Day (Penguin Random House, 2020), followed by a discussion with Ransom Center Director Stephen Enniss. U.S. Poet Laureate from 2001 to 2003, Collins is the author of 12 collections of poetry, including The Rain in Portugal, Aimless Love, Horoscopes for the Dead, Ballistics, The Trouble with Poetry, Nine Horses, and Sailing Alone Around the Room, among others. His new collection brings together more than 50 poems that highlight his deft mixing of the playful and the serious. Collins has said, “It is a good idea to get poetry off the shelves and into public life, ” and his “Poetry Broadcasts” on social media have infused poetry into the daily life of many during the COVID-19 pandemic, exemplifying the accessibility of his poetry. Please RSVP here for he program that will stream live on Facebook and YouTube.

Billy Collins, Whale Day and Other Poems (Penguin Random House, 2020).

 

Me First

—Poem excerpted from Whale Day and Other Poems (Penguin Random House, 2020) © Billy Collins.

We often fly in the sky together,
and we’re always okay—there’s our luggage now
waiting for us on the carousel.

And we drive lots of places
in all manner of hectic traffic,
yet here we are pulling in the driveway again.

So many opportunities to die together,
but no meteor has hit our house,
no tornado has lifted us into its funnel.

The odds say then that one of us will go
before the other, like heading off
into a heavy snow storm, leaving

the other one behind to stand in the kitchen
or lie on the bed under the fan.
So why not let me, the older one, go first?

I don’t want to see you everywhere
as I wait for the snow to stop,
before setting out with a crooked stick, calling your name.

© Billy Collins

Filed Under: archive, Authors, Featured1, literature Tagged With: Billy Collins, poetry

International collaboration will lead to online archive of Welsh poet and writer

October 27, 2020 - Harry Ransom Center

A digital collection of manuscripts and photographs related to Welsh poet and writer Dylan Thomas will soon be available online thanks to an international collaboration. [Read more…] about International collaboration will lead to online archive of Welsh poet and writer

Filed Under: archive, Authors, Digital Collections, Featured1 Tagged With: Dylan Thomas, poetry

Poetry and War: A Reading and Conversation

February 27, 2019 - Suzanne Krause

Commemorate World Poetry Day with a reading and conversation between two award-winning contemporary poets whose lives and writings have been impacted by war. [Read more…] about Poetry and War: A Reading and Conversation

Filed Under: Exhibitions + Events, Featured1 Tagged With: Dean F. Echenberg War Poetry collection, poet, poetry, war

Notebooks illuminate creative process behind Billy Collins’s poem “The Names”

September 10, 2018 - Alicia Dietrich

This story originally appeared January 21, 2014.

Among the papers in the recently acquired Billy Collins archive are materials related to his poem “The Names,” which was written to commemorate the victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks. Interspersed throughout the poem are the names of 26 victims of the attacks, one name for each letter of the alphabet, from “Ackerman” through “Ziminsky.” [Read more…] about Notebooks illuminate creative process behind Billy Collins’s poem “The Names”

Filed Under: Authors, Books + Manuscripts Tagged With: Billy Collins, poetry, U.S. poet laureate

Cold War culture

May 9, 2018 - Leigh Hilford

Erik Mortenson discusses his book Ambiguous Borderlands and the pervasiveness of shadow imagery in Cold War materials.

Ambiguous Borderlands: Shadow Imagery in Cold War American Culture (Southern Illinois University Press, 2016) investigates the role shadows play in Cold War literary and popular texts. Informed by research at the Ransom Center, it examines Beat literature, postwar photography, film noir, Twilight Zone episodes, and more to explain why shadow imagery had such a hold on American imaginations in the mid-twentieth century. [Read more…] about Cold War culture

Filed Under: Featured1, literature, Research + Teaching Tagged With: Allen Ginsberg, Beats, Cold War, Dorot Foundation Postdoctoral Research Fellowships in Jewish Studies, Fellowships, Jack Kerouac, poetry

Borges, Beowulf, and Texas

November 1, 2017 - Harry Ransom Center

How did an Argentine poet like Jorge Luis Borges end up reading and writing about Old English poetry? [Read more…] about Borges, Beowulf, and Texas

Filed Under: literature, Research + Teaching Tagged With: Beowulf, Jorge Luis Borges, poetry

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