Water, Water

In these sixty new poems, Billy Collins mixes the straightforward and the elusive to write about the beauties and ironies of everyday experience. A poem is best, he feels, when it begins in clarity and ends with a whiff of mystery. In Water, Water we learn how vigilance and a respect for the peripheral can result in moments of interest and delight. A cat leans to drink from a swimming pool; a nurse calls a name in a waiting room; an astronaut recites Emily Dickinson from outer space—such common and uncommon events are captured here with equal fascination. In a voice both conversational and melodic, hospitable and lyrical, informal but steadied by form, this poet asks us to tap the brakes and slow down so as to glimpse the elevated in the ordinary, the odd in the familiar.

In these sixty new poems, Billy Collins mixes the straightforward and the elusive to write about the beauties and ironies of everyday experience. A poem is best, he feels, when it begins in clarity and ends with a whiff of mystery. In Water, Water we learn how vigilance and a respect for the peripheral can result in moments of interest and delight. A cat leans to drink from a swimming pool; a nurse calls a name in a waiting room; an astronaut recites Emily Dickinson from outer space—such common and uncommon events are captured here with equal fascination. In a voice both conversational and melodic, hospitable and lyrical, informal but steadied by form, this poet asks us to tap the brakes and slow down so as to glimpse the elevated in the ordinary, the odd in the familiar.