The poem is not, as someone put it, deflective of entry. But the real question is, 'What happens … - Billy Collins

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If a lack of empirical foundations is a defect of the theory of logical probability, it is also a defect of deductive logic.

Billy Collins

The poem is not, as someone put it, deflective of entry. But the real question is, 'What happens to the reader once he or she gets inside the poem?' That's the real question for me, is getting the reader into the poem and then taking the reader somewhere, because I think of poetry as a kind of form of travel writing.

Kind, Real, Think, Thinking, Writing

Same Author Quotes

One of the ridiculous aspects of being a poet is the huge gulf between how seriously we take ourselves and how generally we are ignored by everybody else.

Differences, Everybody, Gulf, Poetry, Self, Take

But tomorrow, dawn will come the way I picture her, barefoot and disheveled, standing outside my window in one of the fragile cotton dresses of the poor. She will look in at me with her thin arms extended, offering a handful of birdsong and a small cup of light.

Bird, Come, Light, Look, Offering, Way

A motto I've adopted is, if at first you don't succeed, hide all evidence that you ever tried.

Adopted, Firsts, Hide, Motto, Succeed

Poetry is like standing on the edge of a lake on a moonlit night and the light of the moon is always pointing straight at you.

Edge, Lake, Lakes, Moon, Night, Poetry

But my heart is always propped up in a field on its tripod, ready for the next arrow.

Arrows, Fields, Heart, Propped, Ready, Tripod