Horoscopes for the Dead: Poems [Hardcover]

Billy Collins (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 5, 2011

WINNER—BEST POETRY—GOODREADS CHOICE AWARDS
 
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY
NEWSWEEK/THE DAILY BEAST
 
NATIONAL BESTSELLER

Billy Collins is widely acknowledged as a prominent player at the table of modern American poetry. And in this new collection, Horoscopes for the Dead, the verbal gifts that earned him the title “America’s most popular poet” are on full display. The poems here cover the usual but everlasting themes of love and loss, life and death, youth and aging, solitude and union. With simple diction and effortless turns of phrase, Collins is at once ironic and elegiac, as in the opening lines of the title poem:
 
Every morning since you disappeared for good,
I read about you in the newspaper
along with the box scores, the weather, and all the bad news.
Some days I am reminded that today
will not be a wildly romantic time for you . . .
 
And in this reflection on his own transience:
 
It doesn’t take much to remind me
what a mayfly I am,
what a soap bubble floating over the children’s party.
Standing under the bones of a dinosaur
in a museum does the trick every time
or confronting in a vitrine a rock from the moon.
 
Smart, lyrical, and not afraid to be funny, these new poems extend Collins’s reputation as a poet who occupies a special place in the consciousness of readers of poetry, including the many he has converted to the genre.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The 1990s belonged to Billy Collins in the same way that the 1980s belonged to Robert Fulghum (All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten). Collins's gently ironic, gently elegiac work--the mirror image of, say, Jonathan Franzen's suburban delvings--has slowly constructed a pitch-perfect purgatory, and this death-themed ninth collection seems to want to make it as literal as possible: it opens as the speaker stands "before the joined grave of my parents" and asks, "What do you think of my new glasses?" In a poem titled "Hell," the speaker has "a feeling that is much worse/ than shopping for a mattress in a mall,// of greater duration without question,/ and there is no random pitchforking here,/ no licking flames to fear,/ only this cavernous store with its maze of bedding." That this feeling is never quite articulated over the course of 50-odd poems is not to its detriment: despite the prosaic settings and everyday language, Collins is after the big questions: of life, death, and how to live. But the world is not of his making, and his is a temperament oddly suited to a world where "the correct answer" to questions like why the stars appear as they do, strike "not like a bolt of lightning/ but more like a heavy bolt of cloth." (Mar.)
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From Booklist

Collins writes of time and death with humor and whirligig images and wordplay so unexpected and delectable, reading his poetry is like watching a magician transform ordinary objects�a coin, a card�into something breathtaking out of thin air. Collins likes to focus on small, unobtrusive beings like a mouse or a squirrel and informs us that he is the tortoise, not the hare. He steals an hour to walk up a hill and sit on a �rock the size of a car,� which he then imagines �once moved along / in the monstrous glacial traffic of the ice age.� The poet loves his dog�s �long smile,� and thinks of Dante in a �cavernous� mattress store. In this piquant collection�s hilarious and sweet title poem, Collins riffs on newspaper horoscopes and bemused memories of his beloved dead. A hangover inspires misanthropy, while everyday heartbreaks lead to droll confessions. Including thoughts on his �true vocation,� which is �keeping an eye on things / whether they existed or not, / recumbent under the random stars.� Collins rules as a charming master of mischievous wisdom. --Donna Seaman

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 128 pages
• Publisher: Random House; First Edition edition (April 5, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400064929
• ISBN-13: 978-1400064922
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.7 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #19,819 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #41 in Books > Literature & Fiction > United States > Poetry

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars sharp & accessible, but chock full of the unexpected, April 5, 2011

By 

C. O. Aptowicz (NYC, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Horoscopes for the Dead: Poems (Hardcover)

Billy Collins has become such a poetic institution -- widely regarded as the most popular poet working today and known for his accessibility, as well as the enjoyability & lightness of his verse -- that it can be sometimes it be easy to forget that Billy Collins is a human being, a poet who is still exploring, experimenting and engaging.

In "Horoscopes for the Dead," these two Billy Collins -- the beloved poetic institution and still evolving writer -- are somersaulting all over each other.

For fans of iconic Billy Collins work, there is a lot to love in this collection. There are beautiful and clever pieces about house guests, beloved dogs, walks in the woods, poetry workshops and poetry readings, dinner parties, dinner guests and sometimes just dinners. You get the sense, as you may have in previous collections, that Collins is conspiring with you in some wonderful morning kitchen, and that you just happen to be the lucky recipient of his well-turned phrases and well-timed thoughts.

And yet, there are poems in here that are likely to surprise.

In this collection -- even more so than his last, "Ballistics" -- Collins seems fixated on the darker elements of life. While "Ballistics" explored the shadows of heartbreak, "Horoscopes for the Dead" seems to intent on meeting mortality in its eyes. In pieces like the book's first poem, "Grave" -- in which finds Collins laying down on the graves of his parents, hoping to communicate with them in some way -- to the book's title poem -- where the absurdity of horoscopes is juxtaposed with a longing for passed friends -- Collins seems to find himself musing about death in a variety of ways. Even the death of marriage, which he describes as a "the department of lost husbands / or sometimes, as now, the department of dark and pouring rain."

But this collection also finds Collins lost in lust, snapping with stubbornness, itchy with frustration, and there is even a poem recalling his first acid trip -- all things that perhaps aren't associated with iconic Collins poetry. But to me, that's a good thing, a healthy sign for any poet that he can still delight and surprise, that he isn't letting his poetry be dictated by what his audience might want, but instead by what he wants to share, the darkness and the light.

I am happy to add "Horoscopes for the Dead" to my collection of Collins books, and selfishly & eagerly await his next one as well.

17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Unless you're a Collins fan, pass this one up, June 8, 2011

By 

dilbert guy "dilbertguy" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Horoscopes for the Dead: Poems (Hardcover)

I have read most of Collins other poetry books and do really like his poetry. This book however is just plain dull. The cover is great. Too bad the poems inside don't match it. There are a lot of observation poems -- I saw ______________ and it reminds me of _________. Just not fun to read. A few of them are okay, but none of the poems are as good as in his previous books. If you really want to read this see if you can get it from your library first to make sure you really do want to read it. This is not his finest work.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Horoscopes for the Dead: Poems, May 6, 2011

By 

C. Anderson (Albany, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Horoscopes for the Dead: Poems (Hardcover)

Billy Collins' latest collection of poems does not disappoint. Collins makes poetry of ordinary things and writes with an ear to the reader. He blends many emotions and often adds a sense of wry humor. He is my favorite modern poet and I treasure his books. This is a review of a book purchased from Amazon.