Billy Collins
Billy Collins
William James "Billy" Collinsis an American poet, appointed as Poet Laureate of the United States from 2001 to 2003. He is a Distinguished Professor at Lehman College of the City University of New York and is the Senior Distinguished Fellow of the Winter Park Institute, Florida. Collins was recognized as a Literary Lion of the New York Public Libraryand selected as the New York State Poet for 2004 through 2006. He isa teacher in the MFA program at Stony Brook...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth22 March 1941
CityNew York City, NY
CountryUnited States of America
My persona is less miserable than a lot of contemporary poetry speakers are.
It's an important social duty to spread the word of English to people whose livelihoods depend on knowing the language.
I'm pretty much all for poetry in public places - poetry on buses, poetry on subways, on billboards, on cereal boxes.
I'm not a claustrophobe, but you don't need to be to feel claustrophobic inside an MRI. It's like being buried alive.
I'm going through life's cycles at an alarmingly fast pace, but my persona has a Peter Pan quality: he doesn't age.
I'm easily frightened, and I've also come to realize that old Catholic guilt or remorse is easily stimulated.
I'm an only child, and I can take all the attention you manage to pile on me.
I'm a nearly uncontrollable Geoff Dyer fan, who I think is one of the most comically brilliant writers today.
I'll listen to anything authentic whether it's bluegrass or gospel or blues.
I think 'accessible' just means that the reader can walk into the poem without difficulty. The poem is not, as someone put it, deflective of entry.
I learned snails don't have ears. They live in silence. They go slowly. Slowly, slowly in silence.
I first came across 'The Lake Isle of Innisfree' in college, with other anthologized poems by Yeats.
I find that my reading, particularly nonfiction, can inspire a poem as well as anything else.
Humor, for me, is really a gate of departure. It's a way of enticing a reader into a poem so that less funny things can take place later. It really is not an end in itself, but a means to an end.