NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - From former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy
Collins comes a twelfth collection of poetry offering over fifty new
poems that showcase the generosity, wit, and imaginative play that
prompted The Wall Street Journal to call him "America's favorite
poet."
The Rain in Portugal--a title that admits he's not much of a
rhymer--sheds Collins's ironic light on such subjects as travel and art,
cats and dogs, loneliness and love, beauty and death. His tones range
from the whimsical--"the dogs of Minneapolis . . . / have no idea
they're in Minneapolis"--to the elegiac in a reaction to the death of
Seamus Heaney. A student of the everyday, Collins here contemplates a
weather vane, a still life painting, the calendar, and a child lost at a
beach. His imaginative fabrications have Shakespeare flying comfortably
in first class and Keith Richards supporting the globe on his head. By
turns entertaining, engaging, and enlightening, The Rain in Portugal
amounts to another chorus of poems from one of the most respected and
familiar voices in the world of American poetry.
Praise for The Rain in Portugal
"Nothing in Billy Collins's twelfth book . . . is exactly what readers
might expect, and that's the charm of this collection."--The
Washington Post
"This new collection shows [Collins] at his finest. . . . Certain to
please his large readership and a good place for readers new to Collins
to begin."--Library Journal
"Disarmingly playful and wistfully candid."--Booklist
