Dog Show

By: Billy Collins

Narrated by: Billy Collins

'Collins remains the most companionable of poetic companions.' – The New York Times

Billy Collins’s poetry collection Dog Show celebrates the joy of our canine best friends, honouring the love we feel for the animals who play such vital roles in our lives.

In twenty-five poems, Collins distills the many ways dogs warm our hearts, from the happiness we experience as we watch a dog run unencumbered by our burdens, to the silliness of cradling a dog in our arms as we step on the scale together. Turning his inimitable eye and ear to the complexities of dog behaviour, Collins ponders all that these winning creatures give us and what we learn from them about ourselves.

For more than four decades Collins has delighted readers with his insight, wit, and clear poetic voice. In Dog Show, 'America’s favorite poet' (The Wall Street Journal) illuminates man's best friend (sorry, cat lovers).

Alongside Pamela Sztybel’s watercolours found in the accompanying material, which effortlessly depict a dog’s humble grace, Dog Show reveals the profound role these majestic animals play in our lives and the meaning they give us.

Critic reviews

Billy Collins’ medium is a rare amalgam of accessibility and intelligence. I’d follow this man’s mind anywhere. Expect to be surprised (Michael Donaghy)

Billy Collins is one of my favourite poets in the world (Carol Ann Duffy)

Chatty, witty, wholly dependable

Smart, his strings tuned and resonant, his wonderful eye looping over the things, events and ideas of the world, rueful, playful, warm voiced, easy to love (Annie Proulx)

Funny but serious, accessible but rich in meaning, consistently surprising – the world looks slightly different after reading a Billy Collins poem. He’s a one-off, an American treasure (Nick Laird)

The treat of treats. Unlike the wedding guest waylaid by Coleridge's Ancient Mariner, the reader emerges from encounters with Collins as a wiser and far happier person

Collins remains the most companionable of poetic companions

A writer . . . fully aware of his work’s power to delight

A poet of plenitude, irony, and Augustan grace

Delightfully direct, he won’t lose you in his lyricism but will transport you to a better place

Billy Collins 'puts the "fun" back in 'profundity' (Alice Fulton)

The most popular poet in America

Billy Collins writes lovely poems . . . Limpid, gently and consistently startling, more serious than they seem, they describe all the worlds that are and were and some others besides (John Updike)

Imaginative thinking gives this collection its richness.... The work also shows a variety of styles...[that] provide both pleasure and a vivid example of how one's thoughts, when unrestrained, can lead to unexpected destinations