And this one targets my readerly heart as if its poetic arrow is aimed to pierce me, only me. Because, well, it is. That's how poetry works. That's how Billy Collins works. That's how reading works. ❤️
Oh, how I love to read. Some of the books and writers who have been my sisters, brothers, kindred spirits, or heralds of surprise and fascination thus far in 2026 include:
Memorial Days, Geraldine Brooks
The Vaster Wilds, Lauren Groff
The Separation of Church and Hate, John Fugelsang
The Berry Pickers, Amanda Peters
The Road to Tender Hearts, Annie Hartnett
Flashlight, Susan Choi
Homeschooled, Stefan Merrill Block
As Collins says in the final line of this poem, books and I are on "a road we will always be traveling together."
Who are you traveling with right now? What have you read in the last month?
Dear Reader
by Billy Collins
Baudelaire considers you his brother,
and Fielding calls out to you every few paragraphs
as if to make sure you have not closed the book,
and now I am summoning you up again,
attentive ghost, dark silent figure standing
in the doorway of these words.
Pope welcomes you into the glow of his study,
takes down a leather-bound Ovid to show you.
Tennyson lifts the latch to a moated garden,
and with Yeats you lean against a broken pear tree,
the day hooded by low clouds.
But now you are here with me,
composed in the open field of this page,
Baudelaire considers you his brother,
and Fielding calls out to you every few paragraphs
as if to make sure you have not closed the book,
and now I am summoning you up again,
attentive ghost, dark silent figure standing
in the doorway of these words.
Pope welcomes you into the glow of his study,
takes down a leather-bound Ovid to show you.
Tennyson lifts the latch to a moated garden,
and with Yeats you lean against a broken pear tree,
the day hooded by low clouds.
But now you are here with me,
composed in the open field of this page,
....
(Read the rest here, at The Poetry Foundation.)
~~~~~~~~~~
26 comments:
"a road we will always be traveling together." YES! Thank you for this poem, Karen. I did need to read it, too. One of my favorite books of the year so far has been The Marriage Portrait, by Maggie O'Farrell.
Karen, thank you for the recommendations and for Billy! Sorry I had to delete my prior comment (not sure if you can see it behind the scenes, but as soon as I hit enter, I thought – that could have a double entendre!).
Susan, yes, Maggie O'Farrell is so good! For some unknown reason I haven't read The Marriage Portrait yet but of course loved Hamnet, and also This Must Be the Place. And her memoir (I Am, I Am, I Am) was excellent too!
Tracey, I can't see the one you deleted, so no worries! :) It's always time for Billy Collins, yes? :)
Karen, many thanks for the reading list. I've got FLASHLIGHT on my nightstand and HOMESCHOOLED on my wish list. xo
Irene, Flashlight was pretty amazing. Its breadth surprised me (I hadn't read much about it before I dove in) but it pulled me in and kept me invested until the end. Homeschooled is igniting lots of conversations. It's more of a memoir of a lifelong dysfunctional mother/son relationship and of abuse, but of course homeschooling can be used within/as part of abuse. A friend and I are talking a lot about it.
Thanks, Karen, for the reading list. Tucking that away for my next trip to the library. I enjoyed Billy's poem. He captures the randomness of our encounters with people so well. I always stare at the cars from a plane window or on a highway, and wonder where they are going and what stories each car is holding.
Thank you so much, Karen, for this Billy Collins poem and the book recommendations. I read the elegaic MEMORIAL DAYS but haven't read the others yet, but Marriage Portrait is up next! Loved Scott Anderson's KING OF KINGS about Iran.
Thank you for this celebration of reading. It does, as the poem suggests, feel like an intimate connection between writer and reader that I feel every time I pick up a book. Such a special experience so well described.
Beautiful, Karen! I am reading multiple books. Laura Purdie Salas’ Discovering Nature’s Laws is engrossing me this afternoon and I’m sure I’ll talk about it on my blog. I’m also reading Isabella Nagg and the Pot of Basil by Oliver Darkshire, which you might like if you are looking for something like a medieval fantasy version of Douglas Adams. xo
That was me
Thanks, Karen, I've been reading my new edition of Poetry magazine, and terrible because I want to mark, or memorize nearly every line I read, like Maggie Smith's "The future/ is where I'm going only because/ I have no choice" (there is more). I love this poem you've shared, the way Collins writes "the open pasture of the page" bringing his words to real life!
* Cathy, yes, Collins has a way of magically capturing moments.
* Mona, MEMORIAL DAYS was so moving, wasn't it?
* Janice, yes, he plops us directly into the feeling of the reader/writer relationship.
* Tabatha, thanks for the recommendations!
* Linda, oh, yes! Smith's "The Before Picture"! So good.
Karen, lovely poem by Collins, and yes, it's always time for Billy Collins. These days I am reading Marcus Borg "Convictions" and I just finished reading the play "The Crucible" by Arthur Miller--a timely story since we are in another witch hunt season now.
Karen, like you I am an avowed fan of Billy Collins, so when I saw the light shining on your post, I could not resist stopping by. A life long relationship is formed when we commit to a reading life as Billy articulates here. Ironically I have just finished reading his collection of short poems, Musical Tables. As always, I love it. I can trust Billy Collins to deliver...
It's always a good time for Billy Collins! Thanks for sharing this poem and your book recs. I've been in a weird reading place and have had a tough time sticking through anything meaningful. I did just request "Flashlight" from the library. We'll see if that can pull me out of my slump! Thanks!
I'm a huge fan of Billy Collins and what a great list of books you've read already! I have Homeschooled on hold at my library.
* Denise, oh, I haven’t read The Crucible since high school, but yes, it feels like a witch hunt. Convictions looks compelling. Susan Choi’s Flashlight deals in part with North Korea and there were chilling associations there too.
* Alan, I recently introduced a friend to Billy Collins and she just read Musical Tables too. What a joy to introduce one of my best friends to one of my favorite poets!
* Molly, that kind of book slump is *hard*! Just a heads up on Flashlight, it is heavy and covers a sweeping span of time, just so you know what you’re in for. If you want something that moves faster, you might try The Road to Tender Hearts. It has heavy issues (every character has been through something terrible) but it’s written with such humor, grace, and charm that it ends up feeling quirky and delightful. The author said she was going through a time of one near-disaster after another in her life and all she could think to do was laugh, so she wrote a book in that vein. :)
* Marcie, Homeschooled is a compelling read and provokes a lot of discussion. I have so many questions now about the author, his past, his family about why/how some things have played out … a friend and I keep returning to discussions about it.
Love love love the poem (why had I not seen it before?). Thanks so much; as you said sometimes we really need a good Billy Collins poem to set us right and nourish our souls. This one really hit the spot. Appreciate the reading list (can't wait to check those books out for myself). So far this year I finally got around to Tara Westover's Educated, and currently I'm making my way through Patti Smith's latest memoir.
Flashlight is on my list. But just started George Saunders' VIGIL -- oof. And squeezed in Pieces of My Mother (Melissa Cistaro) and The Correspondent.
Yes, it was high time we had some Billy Collins, and we can always depend on you to fill that void! Thank you!
Wasn't Memorial Days a gorgeous gut-wrench of a book? Oh, my. I love her writing so much.
* Jama, it’s funny, I didn’t recall this one either until I found it this week! (Okay, maybe we can both cut ourselves a break since he’s written approximately 2,348, 221 poems.) :D I STILL haven’t read Educated but I have a copy here. Some people have compared Homeschooled to Educated and I have to say, I still have SO many questions for the author. after finishing the book.
* Patricia, I absolutely love The Correspondent. Iput Vigil on my TBR last week after a podcast mentioned it, and wow, Pieces of My Mother sounds intriguing.
* Mary Lee, yes, a gorgeous gut-wrench of a book is the perfect way to describe Memorial Days. What a writer.
What amazes me most about Billy is the way he plays the same trick over and over and over and every time it feels fresh and surprising! I didn't know this one, so thanks, Dear Blogger. I've recently read ALL FOURS which my 26yo daughter "warned" me was a lot of sex, but it turns out it's not really ABOUT sex, and I thought it was brilliant. And I finally got around to TOM LAKE and I'm now listening to NICKEL BOYS. What a fine, fine book, that makes you keep reading it even when you really don't want to know what happens next.
Karen, thanks for this post. I ran into the library yesterday and almost randomly grabbed three books, and I can't even say what they are—yet. My partner and I both read Lonesome Dove over the holidays, and were surprisingly transported and moved. I will explore your personal list next, as well as the other books mentioned in this thread. Yay!
* Heidi, I just heard something about ALL FOURS on a book podcast too, and I loved Tom Lake. (I love everything Ann Patchett writes.) NICKEL BOYS is on my TBR too, so thanks for the reminder.
* Doida, I haven’t read LONESOME DOVE for a long time but I remember how much I loved it. My husband had told me I’d like it and I thought, “A western? Really?!” :) But it’s much, much more. I love to do a random library book grab!
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