Read By: Billy Collins

The 92nd Street Y, New York · Apr 4, 2020 · 5m

Billy Collins on his selection: I chose poems from William Matthews (1942-1997) and Thomas Lux (1946-2017) because I wanted to honor two fallen soldiers who fought for an increase of beauty and truth in the world, who also knew that a good poem must at least be a series of good lines—that is, they found their way to the end of a poem one line at a time. In their own different ways and with highly different voices, they both understood the importance of broad humor and subtle ironies in freeing a poem from the claustrophobia of purely autobiographical designs. All poems are autobiographical in…