They were silly for … uh, Billy?

It was smart of the Get Lit! organizers to not schedule anything for Friday night. It would have been hard — no, impossible — to compete with Billy Collins. The fact that 1,000-plus fans of poetry showed up at Whitworth College shows just what holding the title of United States poet laureate can do for you.

But Collins is more than just a title. As Whitworth English professor Leonard Oakland said in his moving introduction, the 11th U.S. poet laureate “shows us that poems begin in the ordinary moments of life.” Collins’ ability to, as Oakland said, “show us what has brought us to the moment,” plus his sense of humor and his droll, understated style, was enough to keep the audience, for nearly 90 minutes, laughing, applauding and, when the moment struck, simple doing a group, “Hmmmmmmm.”

In between his poetry, here is some of what he said:

“I’ve been accused of writing to people, among the other charges leveled at me.”

“This is a poem called ‘Monday, ’ which come to think about it sound positively boring… Maybe I’ll change it to ‘Wednesday.’ ”

Saying that people raised in the country grow up being afraid of bears, snakes and spiders, Collins said, “I was raised in New York City. I was afraid of furniture.”

When asked whether he ever revises a poem, Collins repeated what someone once said about revising being “cleaning up after the party. I think revising IS the party.”

The only possible response to that is… “Hmmmmmmm.”