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    • Translates into 
      • abkhazian
        afar
        afrikaans
        albanian
        arabic
        araucanian
        armenian
        assamese
        azerbaijani
        bashkir
        basque
        belarusian
        bengali
        berber
        bkms
        bosnian
        breton
        bulgarian
        buriat
        catalan
        chechen
        chinese
        chuvash
        corsican
        croatian
        czech
        danish
        duala
        dutch
        english
        esperanto
        estonian
        finnish
        french
        galician
        georgian
        german
        greek
        gujarati
        haitian
        hebrew
        hindi
        hungarian
        icelandic
        indonesian
        irish
        italian
        japanese
        kalmyk
        kannada
        kashmiri
        kazakh
        kirghiz
        korean
        kumyk
        kurdish
        latin
        latvian
        lezghian
        lithuanian
        lushai
        macedonian
        malay
        malayalam
        maltese
        marathi
        mayan language
        mongolian
        montenegrin
        nepali
        norwegian
        occitan
        oriya
        ossetic
        persian
        polish
        portuguese
        rhaeto-romance
        romanian
        romany
        russian
        sanskrit
        sardinian
        scots
        scottish gaelic
        serbian
        shona
        sindhi
        sinhala
        slovak
        slovenian
        sorbian language
        southern sami
        spanish
        swahili
        swedish
        swiss german
        tajik
        tamil
        tatar
        telugu
        tetum
        turkish
        turkmen
        udmurt
        ukrainian
        urdu
        uzbek
        vietnamese
        welsh
        yakut
        yiddish
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        afrikaans
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        armenian
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        bosnian
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        japanese
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        kannada
        korean
        kurdish
        latvian
        lithuanian
        lushai
        macedonian
        malay
        malayalam
        maltese
        maori
        marathi
        montenegrin
        nepali
        northern sami
        norwegian
        oriya
        persian
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Billy Collins

Drinking Alone

  • 1 Another Reason Why I Don't Keep A Gun In The House | Translations: dehu
  • 2 Forgetfulness | Translations: dehu
  • 3 NIGHTCLUB | Translations: dehu
  • 4 LITANY | Translations: dehu
  • 5 AIMLESS LOVE | Translations: dehu
  • 6 SURPRISE | Translations: dehu
  • 7 Drinking Alone
  • 8 Orient
Language: english
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Drinking Alone

After Li Po


This is not after Li Po
the way the state s after me
for neglecting to pay al my taxes,

nor the way I am after
the woman in front of me
on the long line at the post office.

Li Po, I am not saying
“After you”
as I stand holding open

one of the heavy glass doors
that divide the centuries
in a long corridor of glass doors.

No, the only way this is after you
is in the way they say
it’s just one thing after another,

like the way I will pause
to raise a glass of wine to you
after I finish writing this poem.

So let me get back
to sitting in the wind alone
among the pines with a pencil in my hand.

After all, you had your turn,
and mine will soon be done
then someone else will sit here after me.

© Billy Collins
Audio production: Literaturwerkstatt Berlin 2011
Categories: poems on poetics, poetry & poets, writing (poetry), alcohol & drugs

Translations:

previous poem
   (SURPRISE)
7 / 8
nächstes Gedicht
(Orient)   
listen to all poems

Billy Collins

photo © gezett.de
* , New York, United States
lives in: Somers, United States

Billy Collins was born in New York City in 1941. He is the author of several award winding books of poetry, and a recording of reading thirty-three of his poems, The Best Cigarette, was released in 1997. Collins's poetry has appeared in anthologies, textbooks, and a variety of periodicals, including Poetry, American Poetry Review, American Scholar, Harper's, Paris Review, and The New Yorker.

His work has been featured in the Pushcart Prize Anthology and has been chosen several times for the annual Best American Poetry series. Collins has edited Poetry 180: A Turning Back to Poetry (Random House, 2003), an anthology of contemporary poems for use in schools and was a guest editor for the 2006 edition of The Best American Poetry.

 photo © gezett.de
In 2001, Collins was named U.S. Poet Laureate. His other honors and awards include fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Guggenheim Foundation. In 1992, he was chosen by the New York Public Library to serve as 'Literary Lion'. He has conducted summer poetry workshops in Ireland at University College Galway, and taught at Columbia University, Sarah Lawrence, and Lehman College, City University of New York. He lives in Somers, New York.

Publications
  • Pokerface

    Kenmore Press, 1977

  • Video Poems

    Applezaba Press, 1980

  • The Apple That Astonished Paris

    Fayetteville, Arkansas: University of Arkansas Press, 1988

  • Questions About Angels

    Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1991

  • The Art of Drowning

    Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1995

  • The Best Cigarette

    Audio CD

    1997

  • Picnic, Lightning

    Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1998

  • Taking Off Emily Dickinson’s Clothes: Selected Poems

    Picador, 2000

  • Sailing Alone Around the Room: New and Selected Poems

    Random House, 2001

  • Nine Horses

    Random House, 2002

  • The Trouble with Poetry

    Random House, 2005

  • She Was Just Seventeen

    Santa Fe: Modern Haiku Press, 2006

  • Ballistics

    Random House, 2008

  • Horoscopes for the Dead

    Random House, 2011

Awards
  • 1983 Fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts

  • 1986 Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts

  • 1991 National Poetry Series Publication Prize

  • 1992 New York Public Library 'Literary Lion'

  • 1993 Fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation

  • 1994 Poetry Magazine - Poet of the Year

  • 2001 American Irish Historical Society Cultural Award

  • 2001-2002 US Poet Laureate

  • 2004 New York State Poet Laureate

  • 2005 Mark Twain Award for Humor in Poetry

Links
  • Billy Collins

    complete resource for Billy Collins poems, books, recordings

  • Billy Collins at the Academy of American Poets

  • Billy Collins at Wikipedia

  • Trailer - Billy Collins Masterclass

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