Favorite Poet

I love to read, but poetry has never been my favorite. I've dipped my toe in the water, but I've never dived in with gusto.

I had a great AP English teacher in high school who fanned the embers of my love of reading into a roaring blaze. He seemed to have read everything. Whenever he'd recommend something I'd run to the library and devour it. More often than not he was right. Why else would I have read the Studs Lonigan trilogy? (Go get it - it's great.)

But he couldn't duplicate the trick for poetry. He taught us about different meters. I remember iambic pentameter and Robert Frost snippets, but little else. I confuse the names with guitar scales: "Did Shakespeare use mixolydian, or was that Stevie Ray Vaughn?"

My indifference to poetry persisted until one Saturday morning when I was out and about with the dog, listening to "Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me!" on NPR. The guest was Billy Collins. He was so entertaining to listen to that I resolved to give his stuff a try. My local library had a copy of his "Sailing Alone Around The Room". It's the best poetry I've ever read: beautiful, not dry or boring, modern and fresh. I can't stop reading the guy. I take a few in every day, re-reading the ones that I like. I've read them aloud to my wife, because they demand to be given voice the way great songs have to be sung. Poems that I like! I'm astonished at the thought.