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:

• Nine Horses (2002, ISBN 14000061776)
• Sailing Alone Around the Room: New and Selected Poems (2001, ISBN 0375503803)
• Picnic, Lightning (1998, ISBN 0822940663)
• The Art of Drowning (1995, ISBN 0822938936), which was a Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize finalist
• Questions About Angels (1991, ISBN 0822942119), the winner (two years later) of the National Poetry Series competition
• The Apple That Astonished Paris (1988, ISBN 1557280231)
• Video Poems (1980)
• Pokerface (1977)

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. He invented the poetic form the paradelle as a hoax to parody the villanelle, using his mock "Paradelle for Susan"; the paradelle 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 five such prizes (http://www.poetrymagazine.org/prizes_and_winners.html). 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 New York Foundation for the Arts.

Quotations

• (from 1999): As I'm writing, I'm always reader conscious. I have one reader in mind, someone who is in the room with me, and who I'm talking to, and I want to make sure I don't talk too fast, or too glibly. Usually I try to create a hospitable tone at the beginning of a poem. Stepping from the title to the first lines is like 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

• Academy of American Poets biography (http://www.poets.org/poets/poets.cfm?prmID=284)
• NYS Writers Institute biography (http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/collinsbilly.html)
• Some of his poems, from Big Snap (http://www.bigsnap.com/poems.html)
• Text and audio of "The Names" from PBS (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/poems/july-dec02/collins_9-6.html)
• Summary and commentary on his poem "Death Beds" (http://endeavor.med.nyu.edu/lit-med/lit-med-db/webdocs/webdescrips/collins1681-des-.html)
• Steven Barclay Agency web page with a list of external links (http://www.barclayagency.com/collins.html)
• 2001 press release from UC-Riverside (http://www.newsroom.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/display.cgi?id=118)
• 1999 New York Times article (http://www.nytimes.com/library/books/121999collins-publish-war.html)