Picnic, Lightning
Appearance
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Author | Billy Collins |
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Genre | Poetry |
Publisher | University of Pittsburgh Press |
Publication date | 1998 |
Publication place | United States |
ISBN | 978-0-8229-5670-9 |
Preceded by | The Art of Drowning (1995) |
Followed by | Taking Off Emily Dickinson’s Clothes (2000) |
Picnic, Lightning is a collection of poetry by Billy Collins, published in 1998. His fourth book of poetry, it was his first to be widely published (selling over 50,000 copies)[1] and his last before election as United States Poet Laureate.
The title poem is a reference to Humbert Humbert's description of his mother's death in the second chapter of Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov. "My very photogenic mother died in a freak accident (picnic, lightning) when I was three...."
References
[edit]- ^ The Selling of Billy Collins, a November 18, 2001 article from The New York Times