The Writer's Almanac

Today's Poem and Literary Notes

• The Writer's Almanac
  Monday's Poem: "Monopoly" by Connie Wanek, from On Speaking Terms. Monday's Literary Notes: It's the birthday of the best-selling poet Billy Collins, born in Queens, New York (1941). He thinks that too much modern poetry lacks humor. He said: "It's the fault of the Romantics, who eliminated humor from poetry. Shakespeare's hilarious, Chaucer's hilarious. The Romantics killed off humor, and they also eliminated sex, things which were replaced by landscape. I thought that was a pretty bad trade-off, so I'm trying to write about humor and landscape, and occasionally sex."