`Billy Collins is one of my favourite poets in the world' Carol Ann Duffy

Readers will only have to open this book at random to realize the privation a life without Billy Collins has been.

A writer of immense grace and humanity, Billy Collins shows how the great forces of history and nature converge on the tiniest details of our lives - and in doing so presents them in a new radiance. He is also unbelievably funny.

`The most popular poet in America' New York Times

`Billy Collins writes lovely poems . . . Limpid, gently and consistently startling, more serious than they seem, they describe all the worlds that are and were and some others besides' John Updike

`Billy Collins' medium is a rare amalgam of accessibility and intelligence. I'd follow this man's mind anywhere. Expect to be surprised' Michael Donaghy

`Smart, his strings tuned and resonant, his wonderful eye looping over the things, events and ideas of the world, rueful, playful, warm voiced, easy to love' E. Annie Proulx