"I was once described as an indoor nature poet," said Billy Collins, past Poet Laureate, when he spoke at Vassar on Wednesday.  Collins offered us honest, direct, and witty advice.  Before the lecture began, he sat in front of me, chatting with his neighbor and holding his eyeglasses and a stack of books and paper .  I jotted down a couple of sketches and also what I felt were his most interesting comments:

-Everyone has about 300 bad poems in them, and the only way to get rid of them is to write them.

-Poetry is a non-embarrassing diary that activates your inner life.  What removes embarrassment is form.  Proper adherence to form creates a product that brings pleasure.  Form provides the illusion that you care more about poetry than about yourself.

-The poem is an act of imitation.   A poet must be jealous of other poets, and a poet's voice exists in his/her reaction to other poets, rather than in his inner cavity.

-Literature is a conversation through time, and one must read extensively before knowing what to add to this conversation.

-Willa Cather said that there are really only 4 or 5 human stories, but we keep retelling them as desperately as though they have never been told before.

 -Humor disarms the reader, softening him/her to receive what challenging item the poet has next in store.

-Dante defined poetry as things that are true expressed in words that are beautiful.  Auden defined it as a clear expression of mixed feelings.  Collins described poetry as words enjoying themselves at play.  He also described writing (as a profession) as being swallowed by a hobby.