The Art of Drowning is a book of poetry by the American Poet Laureate Billy Collins, first published in 1995.

John Updike described the collection as "Lovely poems—lovely in a way almost nobody's since [Theodore] Roethke's are.

Limpid, gently and consistently startling, more serious than they seem, they describe all the worlds that are and were and some others besides.

"[1] The title poem is the 11th poem in the collection, and it describes a man who reflects on the course of his life while he is drowning.