Name: Billy Collins (b. 1941) Nationality: American
Fact: Poet Laureate of the United States (2001–2003), Collins was labelled ‘the most popular poet in America’ by the New York Times.
Think back to when you were a young child. What kind of imagination games did you play? What characters did you pretend to be?
‘On Turning Ten’ BY BILLY COLLINS
The whole idea of it makes me feel like I’m coming down with something, something worse than any stomach ache or the headaches I get from reading in bad light – a kind of measles of the spirit, a mumps of the psyche, a disfi guring chicken pox of the soul.
You tell me it is too early to be looking back, but that is because you have forgotten the perfect simplicity of being one and the beautiful complexity introduced by two. But I can lie on my bed and remember every digit. At four I was an Arabian wizard. I could make myself invisible by drinking a glass of milk a certain way. At seven I was a soldier, at nine a prince.
