America's Poet Laureate
Benaroya Hall, 7:30 p.m.
Tuesday, January, 13, 2004
Biography
Excerpt
Selected Works
Links

Underwritten by Gull Industries

Biography

Billy Collins describes poetry as "the only surviving history we have of human emotion." The most popular poet in America today, Collins was appointed the United States Poet Laureate for 2001 to 2003. He writes comic and graceful poems that capture ordinary life, but never lose their sense of wonder, often leading the reader into unanticipated territory. Determined to make poetry a part of everyday life, Collins created Poetry 180, a project for students that provides a poem each day during the school year on the Library of Congress web site. The poems are meant to be read aloud and enjoyed; Collins’ hope is to convey the pleasures of poetry by cutting through its perceived inaccessibility. A New York Public Library "Literary Lion" and Guggenheim Fellow, Collins is an entertaining speaker who attracts diverse audiences from coast to coast. "His poems—witty, playful and beautifully formed—bump up against the deepest human mysteries," writes poet Edward Hirsch.

Collins has published seven collections of poems, including Questions About Angels (1991), The Art of Drowning (1995), and most recently, Nine Horses (2002). An anthology, Poetry 180: A Turning Back to Poetry, was published in 2003. Collins is a professor of English at Lehman College, where he has taught for more than thirty years. He lives in Somers, New York.

Nine Horses: Poems (2002)

Today

If ever there were a spring day so perfect,
so uplifted by a warm intermittent breeze

that it made you want to throw
open all the windows in the house

and unlatch the door to the canary's cage,
indeed, rip the little door from its jamb,

a day when the cool brick paths
and the garden bursting with peonies

seemed so etched in sunlight
that you felt like taking

a hammer to the glass paperweight
on the living room end table,

releasing the inhabitants
from their snow-covered cottage

so they could walk out,
holding hands and squinting

into this larger dome of blue and white,
well, today is just that kind of day.

Selected Works
Pokerface (1977)
Questions About Angels (1991)
The Art of Drowning (1995)
Picnic, Lightening (1998)
Sailing Alone Around the Room (2001)
Nine Horses (2002)

Web Site Links
Billy Collins: The Academy of American Poetry
Resources on Billy Collins: appearances, poetry, biography
PBS interview with Billy Collins