The Trouble With Poetry - And Other Poems

It made my heart hurt just a little to see that black marker slash across the checkout barcode on this book at the library book sale—culled, in pristine condition. How could patrons at my county library have overlooked this wonderful book of Billy Collins' work?

I delighted in the re-reading of it, a book full of many of my favorites: “Traveling Alone,” “The Peasant's Revolt,” “Bereft,” and, of course, the first Billy Collins poem I ever read, pointed out to me by my teenage son, “The Lanyard.”