180 More: Extraordinary Poems for Every Day Selected and with an Introduction by Billy Collins

A wonderful collection by my favorite poet. Two things: Collins did not include any of his own poems – mighty unusual for this sort of collection. Second, the introduction, wherein Collins explains his ideas of a “good” poem, and, thereby, his rationale for selecting the poems he includes, is wonderful.
The premise of the volume is simple. When he was poet laureate (2000-2001), he promoted the idea of 180 poems – one for each day of the school year, to “bring back to poetry those readers who have lost interest or who have had the poetry scared out of them by bad teaching or the wrong menu of poems to choose from” (xviii). I would add: those readers who were subjected to the horrific memorization of every poem in the book. That makes me a prime candidate for this collection.
Don’t be afraid. These poems are all accessible, fun, and, while some are serious, none require a literature degree.
--Chiron, 10/01/07