I have a long list of poems by Billy Collins that I would like to feature but I try not to use a poet too often. However, today I stopped at this poem, read it three times, and decided it didn’t matter how many Billy Collins poems I have used. Today you are getting another one. I hope you enjoy it. I was here before, a long time ago, and now I am here again is an observation that occurs in poetry as frequently as rain occurs in life. The fellow may be gazing over an English landscape, hillsides dotted with sheep, a row of tall trees topping the downs,…

I like Mary Oliver’s poetry because reading it feels like having a conversation with a friend. She says what we didn’t have the words to say. That is what any writer wants; to make the reader nod their head in agreement or understanding the whole time they are reading . This poem explains that desire clearly. I want to write something so simply about love or about pain that even as you are reading you feel it and as you read you keep feeling it and though it be my story it will be common, though it be singular it will be known to you so that by the end…