As far as art is concerned, poetry is strange. 

Its short lines and mid-sentence text breaks toss you from line to line, never giving you enough time to get comfortable. Its similes are confusing, pulling you from place to place like someone dragging you through the exhibits of an art museum too quickly for you to register anything but the far-too-wrinkled face of a Renaissance baby Jesus or the quiet wisdom of a Monet. 

It has none of the palatability of an old oil portrait of an Italian donor, eyes flat with centuries of staring at drywall, none of the plainness of a monochrome canvas that fills your eyes with blue and sends you on your way.

Poetry is a conversation in a noisy cafe, barely heard over the clinking of glazed coffee cups and the yelling of orders, delivered with a smile and a “What?” over a mug of leftover latte foam and a chocolate croissant, at least a few sentences confused, at least a few words missed entirely, leaving you to fill in the blanks. 

Billy Collins’ poetry is different. It is not noisy. It is not confusing, pretentious or pedantic.

You have left the crowded cafe.

The early-20th century poet W.B. Yeats writes, “A poet . . . never speaks directly as to someone at the breakfast table,” a quote preluding Collins’ “A Portrait of the Reader with a Bowl of Cereal” from his 1998 book, “Picnic, Lightning.”

Collins refutes Yeats, gently peeling away degrees of separation with words that carefully paint stories of the way morning sun streaming through a kitchen window blankets the breakfast table, running back to the house for a book to bring to the dentist and the perfect sunny spring day. 

Collins writes of a life of simplicity, of morning newspapers and jam pots, spending evenings reading in old leather chairs and dreaming about fishing on a far-away lake. 

He writes with the knowledge of sleepless nights spent with long-winded novels but without the pompousness of a professor in a plaid sports coat and stuffy reading glasses. 

Collins is no holier-than-thou poet throwing convoluted, tumbling refrains from a soapbox, quill waving inanely at passerby. His words are quiet, contained in manageable stanzas, letting you into his stories of content and tranquility. His similes glide past leisurely, not a hint of urgency in poems that waltz like the slow jazz Collins writes about with obvious fondness. 

An interesting feeling comes over you when reading his poetry. The warmth of his words, falling into place like a world champion’s Tetris game, fill you first with a wholehearted catharsis, a feeling that you could live this simple life he speaks of. You could relish in the perfect spring day, find joy in random facts from a diner newspaper and fall in love. Perhaps you could even write poetry yourself, let words walk across the page like your shoes on a warm summer night, describe the feeling of finishing a particularly difficult crossword puzzle, notice the little things in life, write them down. 

Reading Collins’ poetry is a tête-à-tête with an old friend, each story nostalgic and familiar, each description precise, pulling you close. He encourages you to stop and marvel, not at miracles and grandeur, but at the delight found sitting quietly, comfortably, in an easy chair by the fire, rereading a well-worn novel. He needs no frilly cuffs or extravagant movements to capture your attention, only a sturdy wooden chair he can pull forward, a warm sweater and, from across the table, for you to listen.♦