{"product_id":"9780399590726","title":"The Rain in Portugal (Signed Book)","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eFrom former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins comes a twelfth collection of poetry offering nearly fifty new poems that showcase the generosity, wit, and imaginative play that prompted \u003ci\u003eThe Wall Street Journal\u003c\/i\u003e to call him “America’s favorite poet.”\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eThe Rain in Portugal\u003c\/i\u003e—a title that admits he’s not much of a rhymer—sheds Collins’s ironic light on such subjects as travel and art, cats and dogs, loneliness and love, beauty and death. His tones range from the whimsical—“the dogs of Minneapolis . . . \/ have no idea they’re in Minneapolis”—to the elegiac in a reaction to the death of Seamus Heaney. A student of the everyday, here Collins contemplates a weather vane, a still life painting, the calendar, and a child lost at a beach. His imaginative fabrications have Shakespeare flying comfortably in first class and Keith Richards supporting the globe on his head. By turns entertaining, engaging, and enlightening, \u003ci\u003eThe Rain in Portugal\u003c\/i\u003e amounts to another chorus of poems from one of the most respected and familiar voices in the world of American poetry.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003eOn Rhyme\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e It’s possible that a stitch in time might save as many as twelve or as few as three,\u003cbr\u003e and I have no trouble remembering that September has thirty days.\u003cbr\u003e So do June, November, and April.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e I like a cat wearing a chapeau or a trilby,\u003cbr\u003e Little Jack Horner sitting on a sofa,\u003cbr\u003e old men who are not from Nantucket,\u003cbr\u003e and how life can seem almost unreal when you are gently rowing a boat down a stream.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e That’s why instead of recalling today that it mostly pours in Spain, \u003cbr\u003e I am going to picture the rain in Portugal,\u003cbr\u003e how it falls on the hillside vineyards, \u003cbr\u003e on the surface of the deep harbors\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e where fishing boats are swaying, \u003cbr\u003e and in the narrow alleys of the cities where three boys in tee shirts are kicking a soccer ball in the rain,\u003cbr\u003e ignoring the window-cries of their mothers.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Random House Publishing Group","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47013197644016,"sku":"9780399590726","price":26.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9780399590726_p0.jpg?v=1763699758","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9780399590726","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}