I think what gets a poem going is an initiating line. Sometimes a first line will occur, and it goes nowhere; but other times - and this, I think, is a sense you develop - I can tell that the line wants to continue.
Billy CollinsRead
The disappointing second novel is measured against the brilliant first novel - often no novel lives up to the first. Literary improvement seems like an unfair expectation.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The pressure of expectations can overshadow an author's later works, especially after a successful debut.
Billy Collins expresses the challenge that authors face when writing their second novel after achieving success with their first. This disparity in expectations can make the second work seem disappointing, even if it holds merit of its own. The idea that each subsequent creation must surpass its predecessor puts undue pressure on writers and is often seen as an unfair expectation, as literary growth can be a complex and variable journey.
Themes
ExpectationsLiteratureNovelPressureCreativity
In practice
Example use cases
A writer discussing their new book during an interview might say, 'I hope readers don't compare it too harshly to my first novel.'
More from Billy Collins
All quotes βPeople think of poetry as a school subject... Poetry is very frustrating to students because they don't have a taste for ambiguity, for one thing. That gives them a poetry hangover.
Billy CollinsRead
To a poet, it's quite ruinous to have a poem distorted, out of shape, or squeezed, shall we say, into this tiny screen. But I'm not sure big digital companies are sensitive to the needs of poets.
Billy CollinsRead
All they want to do is tie the poem to a chair with a rope and torture a confession out of it. They begin beating it with a hose to find out what it really means.
Billy CollinsRead
And the reason I am writing this on the back of a manila envelope now that they have left the train together is to tell you that when she turned to lift the large, delicate cello onto the overhead rack, I saw him looking up at her and what she was doing the way the eyes of saints are painted when they are looking up at God when he is doing something remarkable, something that identifies him as God.
Billy CollinsRead
The whole world of publishing is moving to electronic, but when you put a poem on a screen and you increase the type size, the shape of a poem changes.
Billy CollinsRead
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