Comments on Ain't I a Stinker?

The greatest threat to poetry today is the belief that everybody has something to say, anybody can write and that there are no rules. Good poetry is as difficult to write as it is rare.

In fairness to Collins, the poems are from a 1977 collection. They are not good. But neither was 1977. A bit of a let-down after the excitement of the Bicentennial.

I am dismayed that a man who would call himself "Billy" would ever become the poet laureate. When me and my friends read his name, we like to say it as read in this poem we wrote. Enjoy.

Religion

I imagine Jesus in a stripclub
bald but bearding
seated amongst the dispossessed
with a wad of twenties nonetheless.

A man named Paul sits beside him
and asks for a cigarette.

"Hey. Didn't we go to High School?"

"... Yeah. But that was a long time ago."

"Billy?"

There is nothing worse than Billy Collins. Coldplay, John McCain, Oliver Stone, being eaten alive by nutrias, none of this comes close. He is unsurpassed in his awfulness.

The fact that George Bush Jr. chose him as our country's poet laureate says plenty.