Billy Collins

'Collins remains the most companionable of poetic companions.' – The New York TimesBilly Collins’s poetry collection Dog Show celebrates the joy of our canine best friends, honouring the love we feel for the animals who play such vital roles in our lives. In twenty-five poems, Collins distills the many ways dogs warm our hearts, from the happiness we experience as we watch a dog run unencumbered by our burdens, to the silliness of cradling a dog in our arms as we step on the scale together. Turning his inimitable eye and ear to the complexities of dog behaviour, Collins ponders all that these winning creatures give us and what we learn from them about ourselves. For more than four decades Collins has delighted readers with his insight, wit, and clear poetic voice. In Dog Show, 'America’s favorite poet' (The Wall Street Journal) illuminates man's best friend (sorry, cat lovers). Accompanied by Pamela Sztybel’s watercolours, which effortlessly depict a dog’s humble grace, Dog Show reveals the profound role these majestic animals play in our lives and the meaning they give us.

''Among the best poems that Collins has ever written'' – NPRIn Water, Water Billy Collins writes with joy and wonder about the beauties and ironies of everyday life. The best poems, he believes, begin in clarity and end with a hint of the sublime: A cat learns to drink from a swimming pool. An astronaut recites Emily Dickinson in space. Here is a writer devotedly in love with the world around him, fascinated by its pleasures but generously sensitive of its pains.Ever a laureate of the oblique, Collins is especially sensitive to disappearances and acts of concealment, sketching objects by the outlines their absence leaves: ‘Everything in this hard place’, reflects one voice in ‘Crying in Class’, ‘is designed to disappear.’ From grief’s soft echoes, to the atheist equally afraid of heaven and hell, Collins remains as keenly vigilant of the light as he does the shadows which dance at its edges.‘A poet of plenitude, irony, and Augustan grace’ The New Yorker''Witty, wry and tender when it hurts, Water, Water is a pleasure to read and easy to give'' – The Washington Post

„Ezek a versek történeteket beszélnek el. Van elejük, közepük és végük. Egyszóval tisztességesek. És derűs versek is. Egy zavarba ejtő műveltségű fickó kedélyességével írták őket. És mégis, mintha szerzőjük megállt volna az öregedésben, és örökké kamasz maradt volna: szövegein átragyog a gyerekverseket idéző játékosság és a mesei optimizmus, mint matchbox a gyomorröntgenen." - Závada Péter.  Billy Collins tizenegy, a 1988 és 2016 között megjelent kötetéből valók az Az a baj a költészettel című válogatás versei, melyeket az olvasó Kőrizs Imre fordításában ismerhet meg.