Billy Collins’ poem “Snow Day” encompasses irony throughout the poem. The poem is about a snow day and Collins’ starts the poem by describing the beautiful blankness of snow. He uses phrases like “landscape vanished”, “libraries buried” and “the path of trains softly blocked” to depict a blank, quiet world; one which has fallen under the spell of snow. He goes on to write about how he stays inside and listens to the radio while it announces all the different schools that are closed. Towards the end of the poem, he starts to talk about the children who play while school is out. Here the poem takes an unanticipated turn, and he speaks of what the children are talking about. This irony makes the poem less about the snow day itself and more about