Billy Collins inspires Poetry Thursday

Last Friday I went to the Skagit River Poetry Festival in LaConner, Washington. It was an event I really enjoyed.

The headliner rock star poet of the night was Billy Collins, and it was interesting to hear him read, since you felt like you got some insight into what it must be like to be a full-time poet in every sense.

He talked about how he likes to write haiku, just as a little poetry exercise, and how once he started, he would see and hear haiku everywhere. One example he gave was a haiku he heard on a college campus. Two young women walked by him, and he heard one say to her friend, something like this:

"And when he found out,
he was like 'oh my god', then
I'm like, 'oh my god'"

We were at the LaConner middle school listening to him, in their big gym, and he called our attention to the fact that while he was listening to the other poets, he noticed that the scoreboard and a poster below it also made a haiku. Then he read it to us. I can't remember exactly what it was, but hearing a scoreboard read as haiku made the whole room laugh.

Do you get to have a title for a haiku? The title is it's own haiku.

_Morning after gift: Double ex-boyfriend haiku (leaving each other)_

We do that old thing
That new lovers often do.
Walk away. Look back.