Another Reason Why I Don’t Keep A Gun In The House

“The Names” by Billy Collins (2001)

This is from the PBS Newshour, broadcast on the 10-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Billy Collins reads the poem, one of his most renowned and important, starting at :42. “The Names” is Collins’s tribute to the victims of the attacks and is startlingly different in tone to “Another Reason Why I Don’t Keep A Gun In The House.” There is no graphic imagery in the clip but the traumatic historical event is referenced.

“The Breather” by Billy Collins (2008)

This poem is about lost love and—similar to other poems—Collins uses a surprising analogy to discuss an everyday situation. As the speaker makes the dog part of Beethoven’s symphony in “Another Reason Why I Don’t Keep A Gun In The House,” the speaker in this poem imagines themself as the psycho in a horror movie who heavily breathes into the guest room phone. The speaker realizes the love was one-sided, coming from inside his own haunted house.

“Passengers” by Billy Collins (1998)

First published in Picnic, Lightning (1998), this poem features a speaker’s observations in the airport before boarding a plane. Like “Another Reason Why I Don’t Keep A Gun In The House,” the poem features an imaginative leap about what would happen if the plane went down, and lingers on the small details of importance concerning the passengers.