[MUSIC PLAYING]
 You should probably read
all your poems out loud.
Dogs are very good
to read poetry to.
Cats, not so much.
Fish are good.
If you have a goldfish, your
first audience before you
send your poetry
out into the world.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Poetry does not need a story.
That's not what its function is.
Poetry makes a lot
of people tense.
You speak English, this
poem is in English,
and yet you have no
idea what it means.
A lot of poetry begins as a
secret and covert activity.
So poetry is sort of a diary
without the lock, a diary
that you want people to read.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
A poem often has two subjects,
the starting subject and then
the discovered subject.
"I was as sure as a boy could
be that this useless, worthless
thing I wove out
of boredom would
be enough to make us even."
The poem wants to
leave the object
and go beyond it into
something greater.
This is what poets are paid for,
I mean, to like look at clouds,
watch chipmunks.
Someone has to keep an
eye on these things.
I like to make a real mess.
I like to doodle,
cross things out.
I try to write a
good line, and then
another good line,
and another good line.
But no one's a
good line machine,
so there's a lot of
staring involved.
Poetry provides us with a
history of the human heart.
If you trace it back to the
oldest poems we can find,
the emotions are the same.
Underneath it all, we're
all after the same thing.
When you read something
back that it just
has your mark on it,
no one else could
have written that but you.
This voice is just
yours, and yours alone.
I'm Billy Collins, and
this is my MasterClass.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
