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
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Poetry often evolves from humor to deeper themes, reflecting the complexity of emotions and experiences.
In this quote, Billy Collins expresses the idea that while humor may be an initial inspiration in his poetry, it often leads to more profound and serious themes. This suggests that art, particularly poetry, is a dynamic medium that can transition from lightheartedness to weighty reflections, capturing the multifaceted nature of human experience.
Themes
PoetryHumorSeriousnessArtEmotion
In practice
Example use cases
During a poetry reading, one might use this quote to illustrate the unexpected depth found in comedic poetry.
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
Similar quotes
If you have the opportunity for your art to meet activism, you shouldn't pass that up when it comes your way.
Regina KingRead
A person who's only suffering can't write a poem. There are choices to be made, and you need to be objective.
Edward HirschRead
Literary studies were no more than a series of autopsies performed by heartless technicians. Worse than autopsies: biopsies. Vivisection. Even movies, which I love more than anything, more than life itself, they even do it with movies these days.
Stephen FryRead
I think the way the audience takes the Indian film-star is a little different from the way the audience takes the Western star there. We are considered like demi-gods here, and the reason is not because we are better or good, but because there is no other mode of entertainment in India.
Shah Rukh KhanRead
The muse whispers to you when she chooses, and you can't tell her to come back later, because you quickly learn in this business that she might not come back at all.
Terry BrooksRead
My belief of book writing is much the same as my belief as to shoemaking. The man who will work the hardest at it, and will work with the most honest purpose, will work the best.
Anthony TrollopeRead