Collins described how the September 11th attacks had jolted people into a sudden, fierce appreciation of the present moment. Engaged couples who had planned to marry the following year got married the following week. Plans that had been endlessly deferred jumped to the top of people's lists. Without knowing it, people were following the advice that poetry had been delivering since Horace wrote 'carpe diem' in the first century before Christ. The final quip — that reading poetry was 'a somewhat less traumatic experience' than going through a windshield or having major surgery — got the biggest laugh of the speech. But the underlying point was serious. Poetry exists, in part, to remind us of what we already know but keep forgetting: that we are alive, that this moment is the only one we have, and that it is both precious and fleeting. You can learn this lesson from catastrophe, or you can learn it from a poem. Collins recommended the poem.