Whale Day brings together more than fifty poems and showcases Billy Collins's deft mixing of the playful and the serious that has made him one of America's most celebrated and widely read poets.

‘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

These are poems of whimsy and imaginative acrobatics, but they are grounded in the familiar, common things of everyday experience. Collins takes us for a walk with an impossibly ancient dog, discovers the proper way to eat a banana, meets an Irish spider, and invites us to his own funeral. Facing both the wonders of being alive and the thrill of mortality, these new poems can only solidify Collins’s reputation as one of America’s most durable and interesting poets.

"A new collection from Billy Collins, former U.S. Poet Laureate and 'America’s favorite poet'" - The Wall Street Journal

"A writer . . . fully aware of his work’s power to delight" - New York Times

"A poet of plentitude, irony, and Augustan grace" - New Yorker

"Billy Collins is one of my favourite poets in the world" - Carol Ann Duffy

"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