{"product_id":"ballistics-isbn-9780812975611","title":"Ballistics","description":"In this moving and playful collection, Billy Collins touches on an array of subjects—love, death, solitude, youth, and aging—delving deeper than ever before into the intricate folds of life.“Collins reveals the unexpected within the ordinary. He peels back the surface of the humdrum to make the moment new.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e–The Christian Science Monitor\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Billy Collins demonstrates why he is one of our best poets, with his appealing trademark style: a self-deprecating charm, playful wit and unexpected imaginative leaps.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e–San Antonio Express-News\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“By careful observation, Collins spins comic gold from the dross of quotidian suburban life. . . . Chipping away at the surface, he surprises you by scraping to the wood underneath, to some deeper truth.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e–Entertainment Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A poet of plentitude, irony, and Augustan grace.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e–The New Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“It is difficult not to be charmed by Collins, and that in itself is a remarkable literary accomplishment.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e–The New York Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Clever, subtle and engaging.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e–Pittsburgh Post-Gazette\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003eBilly Collins \u003c\/b\u003eis the author of twelve collections of poetry including \u003ci\u003eThe Rain in Portugal, Aimless Love, Horoscopes for the Dead, Ballistics, The Trouble with Poetry, Nine Horses, Sailing Alone Around the Room, Questions About Angels, The Art of Drowning\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003ePicnic, Lightning\u003c\/i\u003e. He is also the editor of \u003ci\u003ePoetry 180: A Turning Back to Poetry, 180 More: Extraordinary Poems for Every Day\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eBright Wings: An Illustrated Anthology of Poems About Birds\u003c\/i\u003e. A former Distinguished Professor at Lehman College of the City University of New York, Collins served as Poet Laureate of the United States from 2001 to 2003 and as New York State Poet from 2004 to 2006. In 2016 he was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He lives in Florida with his wife Suzannah.August in Paris \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e I have stopped here on the rue des Écoles \u003cbr\u003e just off the boulevard St-Germain \u003cbr\u003e to look over the shoulder of a man \u003cbr\u003e in a flannel shirt and a straw hat \u003cbr\u003e who has set up an easel and a canvas chair \u003cbr\u003e on the sidewalk in order to paint from a droll angle \u003cbr\u003e a side-view of the Church of Saint Thomas Aquinas.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e But where are you, reader, \u003cbr\u003e who have not paused in your walk \u003cbr\u003e to look over my shoulder \u003cbr\u003e to see what I am jotting in this notebook?\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Alone in this city, \u003cbr\u003e I sometimes wonder what you look like, \u003cbr\u003e if you are wearing a flannel shirt \u003cbr\u003e or a wraparound blue skirt held together by a pin.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e But every time I turn around \u003cbr\u003e you have fled through a crease in the air \u003cbr\u003e to a quiet room where the shutters are closed \u003cbr\u003e against the heat of the afternoon, \u003cbr\u003e where there is only the sound of your breathing \u003cbr\u003e and every so often, the turning of a page.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Brightly Colored Boats Upturned on the Banks of the Charles\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e What is there to say about them \u003cbr\u003e that has not been said in the title? \u003cbr\u003e I saw them near dawn from a glassy room \u003cbr\u003e on the other side of that river, \u003cbr\u003e which flowed from some hidden spring \u003cbr\u003e to the sea; but that is getting away from \u003cbr\u003e the brightly colored boats upturned \u003cbr\u003e on the banks of the Charles, \u003cbr\u003e the sleek racing sculls of a college crew team.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e They were beautiful in the clear early light— \u003cbr\u003e red, yellow, blue and green— \u003cbr\u003e is all I wanted to say about them, \u003cbr\u003e although for the rest of the day \u003cbr\u003e I pictured a lighter version of myself \u003cbr\u003e calling time through a little megaphone, \u003cbr\u003e first to the months of the year, \u003cbr\u003e then to the twelve apostles, all grimacing \u003cbr\u003e as they leaned and pulled on the long wooden oars.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Searching\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e I recall someone once admitting \u003cbr\u003e that all he remembered of \u003ci\u003eAnna Karenina\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e was something about a picnic basket,\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e and now, after consuming a book \u003cbr\u003e devoted to the subject of Barcelona— \u003cbr\u003e its people, its history, its complex architecture—\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e all I remember is the mention \u003cbr\u003e of an albino gorilla, the inhabitant of a park \u003cbr\u003e where the Citadel of the Bourbons once stood.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e The sheer paleness of her looms over \u003cbr\u003e all the notable names and dates \u003cbr\u003e as the evening strollers stop before her\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e and point to show their children. \u003cbr\u003e These locals called her Snowflake, \u003cbr\u003e and here she has been mentioned again in print\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e in the hope of keeping her pallid flame alive \u003cbr\u003e and helping her, despite her name, to endure \u003cbr\u003e in this poem where she has found another cage.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Oh, Snowflake, \u003cbr\u003e I had no interest in the capital of Catalonia— \u003cbr\u003e its people, its history, its complex architecture—\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e no, you were the reason \u003cbr\u003e I kept my light on late into the night \u003cbr\u003e turning all those pages, searching for you everywhere.National bestseller; Former Poet Laureate of the United States","brand":"Random House Trade Paperbacks","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46301947724005,"sku":"NP9780812975611","price":20.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780812975611.jpg?v=1767722139","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/ballistics-isbn-9780812975611","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}