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.
Billy CollinsRead
When I discovered the lyric poem, that advanced not by narrative steps but by blocks and layers of imagery, I said, 'Gee, I probably could do that. So let me try that.'
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote expresses a moment of inspiration and aspiration in poetry, highlighting the appeal of lyrical poetry's imagery.
Billy Collins reflects on his discovery of lyric poetry, which does not follow a traditional narrative but instead builds meaning through rich imagery. This moment sparks his creative confidence, leading him to believe that he too can craft such poetry, demonstrating how inspiration can ignite the creative process.
Themes
PoetryInspirationCreativityImageryArt
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be shared in a poetry workshop to inspire participants to explore lyric poetry.
More from Billy Collins
All quotes →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
To 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
Similar quotes
I find that’s one of the great things about acting-you have the opportunity to stand in somebody else’s shoes. Each character faces a dilemma in her life, and as an actor you’re able to step into that character’s skin, look through her eyes. You leave transformed, a different person, because once you live a little bit of someone’s life, it changes you.
Sally FieldRead
What's so powerful about the Psalms are, as well as they're being gospel and songs of praise, they are also the blues.
BonoRead
At all ages, if [fantasy and myth] is used well by the author and meets the right reader, it has the same power: to generalize while remaining concrete, to present in palpable form not concepts or even experiences but whole classes of experience, and to throw off irrelevancies. Bat at its best it can do more; it can give us experiences we have never had and thus, instead of 'commenting on life,' can add to it.
C. S. LewisRead
I wish you would recollect that Painting and Punctuality mix like Oil and Vinegar, and that Genius and regularity are utter Enemies and must be to the end of time.
Thomas GainsboroughRead
These people live again in print as intensely as when their images were captured on old dry plates of sixty years ago... I am walking in their alleys, standing in their rooms and sheds and workshops, looking in and out of their windows. Any they in turn seem to be aware of me.
Ansel AdamsRead
No one is an artist unless he carries his picture in his head before painting it, and is sure of his method and composition.
Claude MonetRead