"The Real Test"

KEN SAGAL: Nobody wants to read poetry. Everybody's bored by poetry. But everybody loves music, popular music, which almost always has lyrics, which are almost always a form of poetry - right?

BILLY COLLINS: Well, music is public, though. I mean, you put it on, many people can listen to it at the same time, whereas poetry is usually - usually, the intake of poetry is solitary and private. it's you sitting in a room with a book open. But, you know, the real test is to read lyrics without music. You know, if you got everybody off the stage, like, all the musicians and the three girls in the back, in the satin dresses - they have to get off the stage, too - and you just have to get up there with a piece of paper and then read your lyrics, they're not going to hold up, most of them.

Not My Job: Poet Billy Collins Takes A Quiz About Phil Collins