About the Author

Billy Collins is the author of twelve collections of poetry including The Rain in Portugal, Aimless Love, Horoscopes for the Dead, Ballistics, The Trouble with Poetry, Nine Horses, Sailing Alone Around the Room, Questions About Angels, The Art of Drowning, and Picnic, Lightning. He is also the editor of Poetry 180: A Turning Back to Poetry, 180 More: Extraordinary Poems for Every Day, and Bright Wings: An Illustrated Anthology of Poems About Birds. A former Distinguished Professor at Lehman College of the City University of New York, Collins served as Poet Laureate of the United States from 2001 to 2003 and as New York State Poet from 2004 to 2006. In 2016 he was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He lives in Florida with his wife Suzannah.

Reviews

Praise for Billy Collins

“Using simple, understandable language, Collins captures ordinary life–its pleasure, its discontents, its moments of sadness and of joy.”
–USA Today

“At once accessible and profound, [Collins’s] work makes him a natural people’s poet.”
–Boston Herald

“A poet of plenitude, irony, and Augustan grace.”
–The New Yorker

“A sort of poet not seen since Robert Frost.”
–The Boston Globe


“Collins reveals the unexpected within the ordinary. He peels back the surface of the humdrum to make the moment new.”
–The Christian Science Monitor

“It is difficult not to be charmed by Collins, and that in itself is a remarkable literary accomplishment.”
–The New York Review of Books

"The birds are in their trees,/ the toast is in the toaster,/ and the poets are at their windows." As implied by this line-and the book's very title-a major concern of Collins's new collection is the art, the craft, of poetry. As the former poet laureate enters his seventh decade ("Because tomorrow/ I will turn 420 in dog years,"), it is an appropriate time, perhaps, for him to reflect on his aesthetics, on the seemingly casual, natural, sure steps that brought about his poems: "The other day as I was ricocheting slowly/ off the pale blue walls of this room/ bouncing from typewriter to piano,/ from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor." Collins is as close as anyone in contemporary American poetry will likely get to being a household name. Blame his sweet, smart, and wise poems, which are always accessible; his colorful personality and ungoverned humor; or his remarkable energy-it is, no doubt, a combination of all these things. "The trouble with poetry," he suggests, "is that it encourages the writing of more poetry," and this collection is as rich and mischievous as anything he has given us previously. Highly recommended.-Louis McKee, Painted Bride Arts Ctr., Philadelphia Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Praise for Billy Collins

"Using simple, understandable language, Collins captures ordinary life-its pleasure, its discontents, its moments of sadness and of joy."
-USA Today

"At once accessible and profound, [Collins's] work makes him a natural people's poet."
-Boston Herald

"A poet of plenitude, irony, and Augustan grace."
-The New Yorker

"A sort of poet not seen since Robert Frost."
-The Boston Globe


"Collins reveals the unexpected within the ordinary. He peels back the surface of the humdrum to make the moment new."
-The Christian Science Monitor

"It is difficult not to be charmed by Collins, and that in itself is a remarkable literary accomplishment."
-The New York Review of Books