Billy Collins
Billy Collins (born March 22, 1941) is an accomplished American poet who served two terms as the eleventh Poet Laureate of the United States. In his home state, he has been recognized as a Literary Lion of the New York Public Library and selected as the New York State Poet for 2004.
He was born William Collins in a small New York City hospital where fellow poet William Carlos Williams worked as a pediatrician. He went to parochial schools and Holy Cross College, and earned a Ph.D. in romantic poetry at the University of California, Riverside in 1971.
Collin is a distinguished Professor of English at Lehman College, City University of New York, where he taught from 1968 to 2001 and has remained a member of the faculty. More recently, he has taught and served as a visiting writer at Sarah Lawrence College.
As U.S. Poet Laureate, he read his poem "The Names" at a special joint session of the United States Congress on September 6, 2002, held to remember the victims of the 9/11 attacks.
His books of poetry include:
He recorded The Best Cigarette (ISBN 0965887308) in 1997, a collection of 33 of his poems. He also recorded two of his poems for the audio versions of Garrison Keillor's collection Good Poems (2002, ISBN 0670031267).
Collins' poetry is marked by a rejection of restrictive forms such as the sonnet and villanelle. For instance, his poem "Sonnet" begins "All we need is fourteen lines, well, thirteen now", and continues in this vein; the "sonnet" is fourteen lines, but does not rhyme and is not, until the final line, iambic pentameter. His paradelle "Paradelle for Susan" is emblematic of his rejection of formal poetry.
Other recognitions
Over the years, Poetry magazine has awarded him several prizes in recognition of poems they publish. During the 1990s, Collins has won . The magazine also selected him as "Poet of the Year" in 1994.
He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation in 1993, and the stepping into a canoe. A lot of things can go wrong.
- (from 2004): Moving from the position of United States poet laureate to New York State poet laureate might seem like a demotion or a drop in rank to the military-minded. It might even appear that I am heading toward eventually being crowned laureate of my ZIP code. But in fact, it is very gratifying to be honored again as a representative of poetry, this time by my native state where I grew up — more or less — and continue to live.
Sources and external links
