Billy Collins is a former U.S. Poet Laureate (2001 - 2003). Over the years he has become very well known for poems and for his poetry readings. "In 2002, as US poet laureate, Collins was asked to write a poem commemorating the first anniversary of the fall of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center on September 11. The reading was in front of a joint session of Congress held outside of Washington, DC," and “One of Billy Collins’ most critically acclaimed works, “Fishing on the Susquehanna in July” has been added to the preserved works of the United States Native American literary registry as being deemed a culturally significant poem.” In this collection of very short poems, he has had some fun as well as insight.  These are not haikus, they are not limericks, and if you think these are easy to write, you have another challenge coming. Kind of like abstract art which might also look easy to do. Here is what Billy Collins has to say about the form: “Small poems are drastic examples of poetry’s way of squeezing large content into tight spaces. Unlike haiku, the small poem has no rules except to be small. Its length, or lack of it, is its only formal requirement.”  His poems are pithy, humorous, and wise, and here is a selection that truly do not need any explication:

“Precocious”

When I repeated “There, there …” 

my sobbing daughter 

accused me 

of quoting Gertrude Stein  

“The Exception”

Whoever said 

there’s a poem lurking in the darkness 

of every pencil 

was not thinking of this one.

“Page-Turner”

Desirable in fiction. 

Not so much 

with a slim book of poems.