BILLY COLLINS

Collins is the author of six books of poetry including, Picnic, Lightning (1997), The Art of Drowning (1995), The Apple That Astonished Paris (1988), and Questions About Angels (1991), which was selected by Edward Hirsch for the National Poetry Series. He also has recorded a spoken word CD,
The Best Cigarette (1997).

Edward Hirsch praised The Art of Drowning: "Billy Collins is an American original, a metaphysical poet with a funny bone and a sly questioning intelligence. He is an ironist of the void and his poems--witty, playful, and beautifully turned--bump up against the deepest human mysteries."

Collins' poetry has appeared in anthologies, textbooks, and a variety of periodicals including Poetry, The American Poetry Review, The American Scholar, Harper's, The Paris Review and The New Yorker. One of his poems was selected for The Best American Poetry 1992 and another was included in The Best American Poetry 1993. Recently the New York Times featured him in a front page article.

He has received fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts, The National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. He has also won the Bess Hokin Prize, the Frederick Bock Prize, the Oscar Blumenthal Prize, and the Levinson Prize --all awarded by Poetry magazine. 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 at University College Galway. He is poet-in-residence at Burren College of Art in Ireland and professor of English at Lehman College (CUNY).

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