Collins, Billy (1941-…), is an American poet who has achieved both critical praise and broad popular appeal. His published poetry, public readings, and appearances on National Public Radio have made Collins perhaps the best-selling American poet of his generation. Collins served as poet laureate of the United States from 2001 to 2003.
Collins has gained acclaim for his insightful, ironic, and humorous verse. He writes in a deceptively straightforward style that makes his work accessible to readers not normally attracted to poetry. Collins has become especially popular with high school students. He also has broadened his audience with his skillful and entertaining poetry readings.
Collins was one of the five winners of the 1990 National Poetry Series with Questions About Angels (1991), his fourth collection of poetry. The National Poetry Series competition, supported by the National Endowment for the Arts and several private foundations, chooses five poetry books annually for publication. Collins’s later collections include The Art of Drowning (1995); Picnic, Lightning (1998); Sailing Alone Around the Room: New and Selected Poems (2001); Nine Horses (2002); The Trouble with Poetry: And Other Poems (2005); Ballistics (2010); Horoscopes for the Dead (2011); Aimless Love: New and Selected Poems (2013); The Rain in Portugal (2016); Whale Day (2020); and Musical Tables (2022). Collins also wrote a picture book, Voyage (2014).
Collins was born on March 22, 1941, in New York City. He received a B.S. degree from the College of the Holy Cross in 1963 and a Ph.D. from the University of California at Riverside in 1971. Collins has taught English at Lehman College of the City University of New York since 1968. In 2002, he inaugurated a national program called “Poetry 180” to encourage poetry reading in American high schools. As part of this program, Collins selected and edited an anthology of modern poems called Poetry 180: A Turning Back to Poetry (2003).
