Billy Collins was born in New York City in 1941. He is the author of several books of poetry, including Nine Horses (Random House, 2002); Sailing Alone Around the Room: New and Selected Poems (2001); Picnic, Lightning (1998); The Art of Drowning (1995), which was a finalist for the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize; Questions About Angels (1991), which was selected by Edward Hirsch for the National Poetry Series; The Apple That Astonished Paris (1988); Video Poems (1980); and Pokerface (1977). A recording of Collins reading thirty-three of his poems, The Best Cigarette, was released in 1997. Collins's poetry has appeared in anthologies, textbooks, and a variety of periodicals, including Poetry, American Poetry Review, American Scholar, Harper's, Paris Review, and The New Yorker. His work has been featured in the Pushcart Prize anthology and The Best American Poetry for 1992, 1993, and 1997. He has received fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Guggenheim Foundation. In 1992, he was chosen by the New York Public Library to serve as "Literary Lion." For several years he has conducted summer poetry workshops in Ireland at University College Galway. He is a professor of English at Lehman College, City University of New York. He lives in Somers, New York. In the fall of 2001, Collins will assume his duties as the Library of Congress's eleventh Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry.
Essays on Billy Collins
"The Bard of Simple Things" - article in The Washington Post
Earnest Hilbert on Billy Collins
"Everyone's Poet"
Review in The New Republic
Interviews with Billy Collins
"Felicitous Spaces"
Interview with Elizabeth Farnsworth
