Billy Collins - The Lanyard

Complete video at: fora.tv/2008/04/07/A_Selection...
Former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins reads his poem, "The Lanyard."
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Poet Billy Collins is a unique literary figure - a widely read contemporary poet. The former US Poet Laureate and New York State Poet has received fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Guggenheim Foundation, though his most dramatic honors come from a wide and appreciative readership. Collins's poetry collections, including The Trouble With Poetry and Other Poems, Nine Horses, Sailing Alone Around the Room, and Picnic, Lightening, have broken records for poetry sales. His writing is marked by inventiveness beyond traditional poetry forms with ironic twists and lyrical turns of phrase that resonate powerfully. An advocate for integrating poetry into everyday life, Collins compiled the anthologies Poetry 180 and 180 More with poems for every day of a typical school year. Billy Collins has been a professor of English at Lehman College of the City University of New York since 1968 - City Arts & Lectures
Billy Collins is the author of several books of poetry and two anthologies of contemporary poetry, including The Trouble with Poetry: And Other Poems; The Arts of Drowning, which was a finalist for the Lenore Marshall prize; and Questions About Angels, which won the National Poetry Series in 1990. He is also a distinguished professor of English at Lehman College (CUNY). Collins served as US Poet Laureate (2001-2003) and as New York State Poet Laureate (2004-2006). Collins' poetry has appeared in The American Poetry Review, Harper's, The New Yorker, and The Atlantic, among many other journals and periodicals. He has received fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts, The National Endowment for the Arts, and the Guggenheim Foundation. He has won several awards and prizes.

[@fossilwhite]

This poem had me crying by the end. I am the mother of two children with autism. I often worry that I’m not good or strong enough for them. But this poem made me stop and think for a moment. I have to be doing something right; my daughter loves to paint watercolor portraits for me, my son lets me into his world when he sits me down and lets me play trains with him and gives me his favorite one. Those simple, inconsequential things that are so often taken for granted by parents mean the world to me. That is how they show me love and helps me remember that I’m good enough. Thank you.

[@siouxmckenna565]

The mother's gratitude was part of what allowed him to think, as a young boy, that the lanyard was enough. And that is yet another gift she gave him. I love this poem so much.

[@ohnoajellyfish]

I'm here because I took Mr. Collins' MasterClass and it was amazing!

[@cedevita7069]

Who's here from Misha's tweet? 💖

[@ctaylor41659]

And if I were to get that lanyard, I would wear it every day and know the love it represents. Thank you...this was wonderful.

[@Havenscope]

Every time I read one of Collins' poems, I hear his voice as it is here.

[@QuidamByMoonlight]

I love this poem. He deserved the Mark Twain award for humor. Absolutely brilliant! It's spot on in regards to the love a mother has for her child.

[@wrybred]

oddly, this poem, called the lanyard, is one of Collins' "lanyards", and a very respectable one at that. What more could any mother want, then a poet laureate son who deems himself unable to requite his mothers love, and writting so in a poem.

[@sewashburn123]

to be able to transition so smoothly from sardonic wit to beautiful words that speak in earnest...billy collins, you are why i write

[@hualian_baru]

I'm here because of Misha's tweet ❤

[@quasnoflaut7619]

I LOVE this poem, but I think I owe my mom a lanyard now...

[@butterquick]

As I have read this poem many times I have never found it to be comical. Although it is funny in the correct light, I see it as one of the greatest tributes and truths of motherhood.

[@MotherVoltaire]

One of my favorite poems. Thank you, Mr. Collins.

[@saber1epee0]

So, I work as the First-Year Camper director at a Boy Scout Camp. I confess that I am responsible for the creation of several hundred lanyards per year. And I still don't really know what they're for.

[@jasmin0930]

I heard this many many years ago before the age of KZbin and laughed and cried and felt so moved by it I looked it up and printed it out and every so often I read it so no matter how you got here I am glad you are here 😁

[@rebecasandstrom6526]

I’m only laughing because I know I’ll be sobbing when I stop

[@barbaraschutz5273]

Over the years, I have read many of Billy's poems; The Lanyard is the one I remember best.

[@Lava1964]

I heard this for the first time today--at a memorial service. I had to check out this video!

[@anancybrown]

I love this poem so much! Billy Collins is brilliant.

[@filmsyoushouldbewatching]

hands down one of my all time favourite poems