Water, Water: Poems by Billy Collins; 2024. Hardcover.

In these sixty new poems, Billy Collins mixes the straightforward and the elusive to write about the beauties and ironies of everyday experience. A poem is best, he feels, when it begins in clarity and ends with a whiff of mystery.

In Water, Water we learn how vigilance and a respect for the peripheral can result in moments of interest and delight. A cat learns to drink from a swimming pool; a nurse calls a name in a waiting room; an astronaut recites Emily Dickinson from outer space—such common and uncommon events are captured here with equal fascination.