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Billy Collins
Billy Collins served two terms as U.S. Poet Laureate (2001-2003) and served as New York State Poet Laureate from 2004 to 2006, while continuing to steer the Katonah Poetry Series a...view moreBilly Collins served two terms as U.S. Poet Laureate (2001-2003) and served as New York State Poet Laureate from 2004 to 2006, while continuing to steer the Katonah Poetry Series and write marvelous, beloved poems. He's been awarded well over a dozen prestigious awards in poetry, most recently the Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award (2016).
A gifted and dedicated teacher, Collins has served on the faculty of Lehman College, Sarah Lawrence, SUNY Stony Brook Southampton, and the Winter Park Institute. His two Poetry 180 anthologies, developed during his laureate tenure and widely used in schools, have helped ignite a passion for poetry in an entire generation. He has enormously widened the audience for spoken poetry via Garrison Keillor's radio program "A Prairie Home Companion," popular CD recordings, and live readings all over the country (including three at the White House). As a poet, anthologist, reader, and sly polemicist-in each of these roles showing unparalleled reach-Billy Collins has done more to bring poetry back towards the center of American culture and conversation than anyone since Robert Frost.view less