Editorial Review:

Amazon.com Review:
In Nine Horses, Billy Collins, U.S. poet laureate and author of the bestselling collection Sailing Alone Around the Room, attempts to find beauty in simplicity, but ends up achieving the simply banal. Some poems, such as "Rooms" and "Obituaries," in which readers are given freedom to draw their own conclusions, are memorable, but the language in Nine Horses has little music and thoughts are plainly stated. Animals (mostly mice and little birds) populate this sentimental journey, and they are nearly always personified, resulting in poems that sometimes read like the verse equivalent of a Thomas Kinkade print. Collins's use of the vernacular can be burdensome ("and you are certainly not the pine-scented air. / There is no way you are the pine-scented air"), but some readers may find comfort (a haven perhaps) in the author's warm, safe world. Billy Collins has become an immensely popular poet, and though Nine Horses may remain less than inspiring, its poems are certain not to offend. --Michael Ferch

Product Description:
Nine Horses, Billy Collins’s first book of new poems since Picnic, Lightning in 1998, is the latest curve in the phenomenal trajectory of this poet’s career. Already in his forties when he debuted with a full-length book, The Apple That Astonished Paris, Collins has become the first poet since Robert Frost to combine high critical acclaim with broad popular appeal. And, as if to crown this success, he was appointed Poet Laureate of the United States for 2001–2002, and reappointed for 2002–2003.

What accounts for this remarkable achievement is the poems themselves, quiet meditations grounded in everyday life that ascend effortlessly into eye-opening imaginative realms. These new poems, in which Collins continues his delicate negotiations between the clear and the mysterious, the comic and the elegiac, are sure to sustain and increase his audience of avid readers.

Sometimes Billy Collins writes funny poems; others will break your heart. His words are always as sharp as a new knife in your gut.

Average Rating:

Rating: - Always a pleasure
Sometimes Billy Collins writes funny poems; others will break your heart. His words are always as sharp as a new knife in your gut.

Rating: - What?!
There is no way Michael Ferch is ever going to be the pine-scented air or any other object in the Collins universe. It's not because he's a bad person. He simply doesn't get it. The humor, that is.

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Rating: - Like sitting with a friend, watching life unfold around us
I had no preconceived notions of Billy Collins when I opened "Nine Horses" and started to read the words inside. I wonder if delight is an understatement?

I am just not sure if it gets what I am trying to say exactly right and yet delight is how I feel when I read the words on the page here, it is heart and mind opening to see how Collins threads the words together.

Each poem is both highly accessible and easy to understand yet bears more meaning when breathed deeply into the spirit.

I completely enjoyed reading "The Return of the Key" - and felt as if I was sitting with Collins reading my own copy of William Carlos Williams and watching everything as it happened. In "Tipping Point" I pondered the life of one which became pondering my life and life universal.

There are so many little bits and pieces of life, it is best if you scoop them up and read them each yourself.

Breathe deeply and enjoy deeply.

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Rating: - Wonderful
This is everyone's poetry, for the English professor, the deeply dark, the poetically ignorant, hesitant beginners, and the soulful. If you've ever wanted to give a poetry book as a gift, yet knew not where to start, this is a good place. I love Billy Collins for his paradox of simple poems that are complex in meaning (if you search for it). At the risk of sounding like a love struck teenager - I love this!

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Rating: - A Good Collection of Modern Poetry
Billy Collins is a very talented poet. He weaves together a collection of personal and contemplative poems that allow the reader to see how his mind works. The poems are a joy to read for their humour and clever choice of wording.

I am particular found of the poem, "Country" because it made me laugh out loud with the story he had to tell. My favorite line appeared, however, in another poem, "the marriage of knife and fork." I found this poetic and yet delightfully cheeky at the same time.

The only bit of negative criticism I can give is that some of the poems did not quite end, but seemed to meander off. I would have like more concrete thoughts to summarize the poems. This, however, may have been exactly what Collins was intending as he was just describing a moment with a poetic voice.

If you do not like free verse then you will not enjoy these poems. If you feel that poems should be very structured and have a deep universal meaning everytime then you will not like this collection. If you enjoy reading a story, catching a glimpse of the world through someone else's eyes or finding a bit of whimsy/humour in parsody then you will enjoy this collection.

Highly recommended.

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Related Items:

The Trouble with Poetry: And Other Poems

Sailing Alone Around the Room: New and Selected Poems

Picnic, Lightning (Pitt Poetry Series)

Questions About Angels: Poems (Pitt Poetry Series)

The Art Of Drowning (Pitt Poetry Series)

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