# Billy Collins MasterClass Poetry Reading List (2026-06-15) **URL:** \ **Category:** breadcrumbs\ **Created:** [June 15, 2026, 3:41pm UTC](https://pluralist.net/t/billy-collins-masterclass-poetry-reading-list-2026-06-15/332 "2026-06-15T15:41:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![delyan](https://pluralist.net/user_avatar/pluralist.net/delyan/32/245_2.png) [@delyan](https://pluralist.net/u/delyan)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2026, 3:41pm UTC](https://pluralist.net/t/billy-collins-masterclass-poetry-reading-list-2026-06-15/332/1 "2026-06-15T15:41:49Z")
I have been very much enjoying learning about poetry from Billy Collins and his MasterClass, [Billy Collins Teaches Reading and Writing Poetry](https://www.masterclass.com/classes/billy-collins-teaches-reading-and-writing-poetry). I want to read through the poets and poems he references, so I am saving this as a checklist for later. Links point to public poem pages when I could find one. For the two student workshop poems, I linked the MasterClass lesson pages because I could not find public full-text pages outside the course. ## Core poems used or discussed - Billy Collins - [“Elk River Falls”](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/41393/elk-river-falls) - Walt Whitman - [“To a Locomotive in Winter”](https://poets.org/poem/locomotive-winter) - Billy Collins - [“Grand Central”](https://poetrysociety.org/poetry-in-motion/grand-central) - Robert Frost - [“The Road Not Taken”](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44272/the-road-not-taken) - Hart Crane - [“To Brooklyn Bridge”](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43262/the-bridge-to-brooklyn-bridge) - Billy Collins - [“Introduction to Poetry”](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46712/introduction-to-poetry) - Emily Dickinson - [“I felt a Funeral, in my Brain”](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45706/i-felt-a-funeral-in-my-brain-340) - William Shakespeare - [“Sonnet 73”](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45099/sonnet-73-that-time-of-year-thou-mayst-in-me-behold) - Walt Whitman - [“Crossing Brooklyn Ferry”](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45470/crossing-brooklyn-ferry) - Billy Collins - [“Questions About Angels”](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46701/questions-about-angels) - Louis Jenkins - [“Baloney”](https://www.yourdailypoem.com/listpoem.jsp?poem_id=164) - Richard Jones - [“Wan Chu’s Wife in Bed”](https://www.ronnowpoetry.com/contents/jones/WanChu.html) - Billy Collins - [“Monday”](https://www.panmacmillan.com/blogs/literary/monday-by-billy-collins) - Charles Bukowski - [“8 Count”](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49699/8-count) - Marie Howe - [“What the Living Do”](https://poets.org/poem/what-living-do) - Billy Collins - [“The Death of the Hat”](https://voca.arizona.edu/track/id/56210) - Philip Larkin - [“The Mower”](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48423/the-mower-56d229a740294) - Samuel Taylor Coleridge - [“This Lime-tree Bower my Prison”](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43992/this-lime-tree-bower-my-prison) - Ruth L. Schwartz - [“The Swan at Edgewater Park”](https://www.loc.gov/programs/poetry-and-literature/poet-laureate/poet-laureate-projects/poetry-180/all-poems/item/poetry-180-120/the-swan-at-edgewater-park/) - W. B. Yeats - [“The Wild Swans at Coole”](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43288/the-wild-swans-at-coole) - Sarah Iqbal - [“My (Muslim) Father Seizes the Thing on My Nightstand”](https://www.masterclass.com/classes/billy-collins-teaches-reading-and-writing-poetry/chapters/student-discussion-my-muslim-father-seizes-the-thing-on-my-nightstand-by-sarah-iqbal) - Paul Epland - [“The Crash”](https://www.masterclass.com/classes/billy-collins-teaches-reading-and-writing-poetry/chapters/student-discussion-the-crash-by-paul-epland) - John Donne - [“To His Mistress Going to Bed”](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/50340/to-his-mistress-going-to-bed) ## Additional poems and influence references - Robert Frost - [“Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/42891/stopping-by-woods-on-a-snowy-evening) - Robert Hayden - [“Those Winter Sundays”](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46461/those-winter-sundays) - Billy Collins - [_She Was Just Seventeen_](https://www.modernhaiku.org/mhbooks/collinsSheWasJustSeventeen2006.html) - Billy Collins - [“The Lanyard”](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/50975/the-lanyard) - Billy Collins - [“Picnic, Lightning”](https://www.theparisreview.org/poetry/1196/picnic-lightning-billy-collins) - Billy Collins - [“I Chop Some Parsley While Listening to Art Blakey’s Version of ‘Three Blind Mice’”](https://www.lionsroar.com/about-a-poem-i-chop-some-parsley/) - Lawrence Ferlinghetti - [“Two Scavengers in a Truck, Two Beautiful People in a Mercedes”](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/42867/two-scavengers-in-a-truck-two-beautiful-people-in-a-mercedes) - Wallace Stevens - [“Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird”](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45236/thirteen-ways-of-looking-at-a-blackbird) - Charles Simic - [“Bestiary for the Fingers on My Right Hand”](https://www.reddit.com/r/Poetry/comments/kp2kua/poem_bestiary_for_the_fingers_of_my_right_hand_by/) - Richard Hugo - [_The Triggering Town_](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/69411/richard-hugo-the-triggering-town) - Thom Gunn - [_The Sense of Movement_](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/thom-gunn) ## Related books, collections, and essays - Robert Frost - [_The Road Not Taken: A Selection of Robert Frost’s Poems_](https://www.amazon.com/Road-Not-Taken-Selection-Robert/dp/0805069836) - Louis Jenkins - [_North of the Cities_](https://www.amazon.com/North-Cities-Louis-Jenkins/dp/0979312809) - Hart Crane - [_The Complete Poems of Hart Crane_](https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Poems-Hart-Crane/dp/087140656X) - David Lehman, editor - [_The Best American Erotic Poems: From 1800 to the Present_](https://www.amazon.com/Best-American-Erotic-Poems-Present/dp/1416537465) - David Orr - [“The Most Misread Poem in America”](https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2015/09/11/the-most-misread-poem-in-america/) - Allen Ginsberg - [_The Essential Ginsberg_](https://www.amazon.com/Essential-Ginsberg-Allen/dp/0062362283) - Marie Howe - [_Magdalene: Poems_](https://www.amazon.com/Magdalene-Poems-Marie-Howe/dp/0393356035) - Gregory Corso - [_Mindfield: New and Selected Poems_](https://www.amazon.com/Mindfield-Selected-Poems-Gregory-Corso/dp/1560252014) - Susan Howe - [_My Emily Dickinson_](https://www.amazon.com/Emily-Dickinson-New-Directions-Paperbook/dp/0811216837) - Ruth L. Schwartz - [_Accordion Breathing and Dancing_](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Accordion+Breathing+and+Dancing+Ruth+L.+Schwartz) - Emily Dickinson - [_The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson_](https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Poems-Emily-Dickinson/dp/0316184136) - Emily Dickinson - [_Emily Dickinson’s Poems: As She Preserved Them_](https://www.amazon.com/Emily-Dickinsons-Poems-Preserved-Them/dp/0674737962) - Barbara Hamby and David Kirby, editors - [_Seriously Funny_](https://www.amazon.com/Seriously-Funny-Religion-Politics-Everything/dp/082033569X) - Stephen Dobyns - [_Best Words, Best Order_](https://www.amazon.com/Best-Words-Order-Essays-Poetry/dp/1403961476) - Wallace Stevens - [_The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens_](https://www.amazon.com/Collected-Poems-Corrected-Vintage-International/dp/1101911689) - Charles Simic - [_Dismantling the Silence_](https://www.amazon.com/Dismantling-Silence-Poems-Charles-Simic/dp/0807605905) - Philip Larkin - [_Philip Larkin Poems: Selected by Martin Amis_](https://www.amazon.com/Philip-Larkin-Poems-Selected-Martin-ebook/dp/B007UQ44X6) - Samuel Taylor Coleridge - [_Samuel Taylor Coleridge: The Complete Poems_](https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Poems-Penguin-Classics/dp/0140423532) - Lawrence Ferlinghetti - [_A Coney Island of the Mind_](https://www.amazon.com/Coney-Island-Mind-Poems/dp/0811200418) - Michael Adams - [_In Praise of Profanity_](https://www.amazon.com/Praise-Profanity-Michael-Adams/dp/0199337586) A good first pass might be Frost’s [“The Road Not Taken”](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44272/the-road-not-taken), Dickinson’s [“I felt a Funeral, in my Brain”](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45706/i-felt-a-funeral-in-my-brain-340), Shakespeare’s [“Sonnet 73”](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45099/sonnet-73-that-time-of-year-thou-mayst-in-me-behold), Marie Howe’s [“What the Living Do”](https://poets.org/poem/what-living-do), and Larkin’s [“The Mower”](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48423/the-mower-56d229a740294).