Oh Billy Oh

poets.org is a lovely site. They've fixed it all up, and now you can listen to poets reading even if you're using a Mac. If you're teaching poetry next quarter, don't forget to tell your students about it. If you've got one of those fancy classrooms with computer podium, you can listen to the poets reading in class. It's fun.

One thing they have now is a section called Poets in the News. There's an article from the Salt Lake Tribune with a lot of Billy Collins in it, about the accessibility of poetry. Here is what he says about why some poets don't like him:
"I'm a total sitting duck. I sell a lot of books, I have a very contented persona who is challenged in terms of psychic misery - he doesn't have enough misery to qualify as a misery-ridden confessional poet."

Here's what he says about poetry teachers. You probably didn't know this about yourself:
"Teachers tend to present poetry in the classroom that is difficult to understand, and they do it to protect their jobs, because only difficult poems need a teacher to help explain them."

That Billy.