It has to be said that I am largely dead to poetry. I don't mind a bit of narrative verse now and then—I recall liking Alexander Pope's translation of the Iliad and some of Lord Byron's tales—and I don't mind verse drama either. But with a few exceptions other than those, poetry does not do it for me. Prose I can look at and judge whether or not it works. Poetry doesn't speak to me enough even to be able to tell whether I thought it was good or not.

Unusually for me, then, I'm going to recommend this week's installment of "the weekly Billy Collins" as presented by Tim Dunlop. Tim has been presented stuff by Billy Collins, America's poet laureate, for a few weeks now, and this week's item is a particularly good one. Go read it.

posted by James Russell | 12:32 PM