People 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
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
A strong first line in poetry can inspire the entire poem's creation.
Billy Collins emphasizes the importance of the initial line in poetry, suggesting that it can serve as the spark that ignites the creative process. He notes that sometimes a line may lead nowhere, but other times, it resonates with potential, leading to a greater flow of thoughts and ideas, revealing the intimate relationship between inspiration and creativity in poetry.
Themes
PoemFirst LineCreativityInspirationWriting
In practice
Example use cases
During a poetry workshop, I shared this quote to inspire participants on the significance of their opening lines.
More from Billy Collins
All quotes βTo 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
If you write a letter of resignation or something with an agenda, you're simply using a pen to record what you have thought out. In a poem, the pen is more like a flashlight, a Geiger counter, or one of those metal detectors that people walk around beaches with.
Billy CollinsRead
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