File:The Dead - Billy Collins Animated Poetry

Description[edit]

Billy Collins, former US Poet Laureate and one of America's best-selling poets, reads his poem "The Dead" with animation by Juan Delcan of Spontaneous.

Noted for their intelligent humor, accessibility and observations on daily life, Collins' popular poems come alive further in a series of animated poems produced by JWT New York.

- - - - - - - The Poem - The dead are always looking down on us, they say, while we are putting on our shoes or making a sandwich, they are looking down through the glass-bottom boats, of heaven as they row themselves slowly through eternity. They watch the tops of our heads moving below on earth, And when we lie down in a field or on a couch, Drugged perhaps by the hum of a warm afternoon, They think we are looking back at them, which makes them lift their oars and fall silent and wait, like parents, for us to close our eyes.