“If I come across ‘Dad’ or ‘Mommy,’ I’m out,” says the former U.S. poet laureate. “‘Grandma’ gets a pass.” His new collection is “Water, Water.”

Credit…Rebecca Clarke By the Book Poems About Dead Relatives Irk Billy Collins “If I come across ‘Dad’ or ‘Mommy,’ I’m out,” says the former U.S. poet laureate. “‘Grandma’ gets a pass.” His new collection is “Water, Water.” Credit…Rebecca Clarke Have you ever gotten into trouble for reading a book? I got into trouble several times at my all-male Jesuit college for engaging in the nefarious act of reading after lights out. In a dorm room whose window and door had been light-proofed with newspapers and tin foil, I would climb up into a luggage closet and shut the little door behind me. With a pillow for comfort and a flashlight taped to a heating pipe, the scene was made for reading. After closing Camus’s “The Stranger,” I descended a changed young man. What books are on your night stand? Maeve Brennan, “The Long-Winded Lady,” a collection of her Talk of the Town pieces; James Wood, “How Fiction Works” ; “ The Letters of Seamus Heaney” ; Richard Panek’s “The Trouble With Gravity” and “Pillars of Creation”; John Avlon, “Lincoln and the Fight for Peace” ; Lily Brooks-Dalton, “The Light Pirate”; Rowan Ricardo Phillips, “Living Weapon” ; and, as always, Emerson: “Essays and Lectures.” What books would people be surprised to find on your shelves? Andrew Beyer’s “The Winning Horseplayer” and Thomas Eakins’s “A Drawing Manual.” What’s the last great book you read? The last great book I read was Joyce’s “Ulysses,” and the last great book I reread was also Joyce’s “Ulysses.” What books are you embarrassed not to have read yet? Life has become too short for “Middlemarch,” “A Dance to the Music of Time,” “The Alexandria Quartet” and lots of others I’m too ashamed even to mention. Coverage From The Athletic Baker Mayfield Is Suing His Father’s Company for $12 Million Nov. 28, 2024 Salt and Pepper Shakers Laid the Groundwork for the N.B.A.’s Hottest Team Nov. 28, 2024 A New Women’s Soccer Team Is Considering a Name Change After a Backlash Nov. 28, 2024 What’s the last book you recommended to a member of your family? […]

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