Poetry Conversations at Home with Billy Collins

While we are all at home quarantining and poets are doing readings online and a few writers are doing their "book tours" virtually. I have been watching the daily videos from Billy Collins. They are very informal conversations and he reads his poems and poems by others. It's a low-tech iPhone production, but then so are some major newscasters and late-night TV guests.

You can check out Billy's videos on Facebook.  

At the end of today's "broadcast" (his term), he gave an "assignment" to read a poem before the Friday session. He said this was the poem he used when asked that impossible question "What is your favorite poem?"

Coleridge 1795, about the time he wrote the poem
Peter Vandyke - http://www.zeno.org/Literatur/I/coleridg.jpg,
held at the National Portrait Gallery, Public Domain, Link

I was surprised that his choice is "This Lime-tree Bower my Prison" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. I had never read the poem before, but I can see that it is appropriate to a time when we are separated from friends and perhaps from nature and experiences.

You might want to read the poem and then join the live Facebook broadcast on Friday and add your comments.

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