Billy Collins

From the former Poet Laureate of the United States and New York Times bestselling author of Aimless Love comes a wondrous and personal new collection of poems about the joys and mysteries of daily life

“Among the best poems that Collins has ever written.”—Maureen Corrigan, NPR

“Collins remains the most companionable of poetic companions.” —The New York Times

In this collection of sixty new poems, Billy Collins writes with more intimacy than ever before about the beauties and ironies of everyday experience. A poem is best, he feels, when it begins in clarity but ends with a whiff of mystery.

In Water, Water, Collins combines his vigilant attention and respect for the peripheral to create moments of delight, while revealing more about himself as a poet than we’ve ever encountered. Common and uncommon events are captured here with equal fascination, be it a cat leaning to drink from a swimming pool, a nurse calling a name in a waiting room, or an astronaut reciting Emily Dickinson from outer space. With his trademark lyrical informality, Collins asks us to slow down and glimpse the elevated in the ordinary, the odd in the familiar. It’s no surprise that The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal both call Collins one of America’s favorite poets.

The Monet Conundrum

Is every one of these poems

different from the others

he asked himself,

as the rain quieted down,

or are they all the same poem,

haystack after haystack

at different times of day,

different shadows and shades of hay?