Billy+Collins,+2001-2003


 * Billy Collins (2001-2003) **

Billy Collins was born in New York City in 1941. He is the author of several books of poetry, including //Ballistics (2008), She Was Just Seventeen// (2006), //The Trouble with Poetry// (2005); //Nine Horses// (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 has been chosen several times for the annual [|//Best American Poetry//] series. Collins has edited //Poetry 180: A Turning Back to Poetry// (Random House, 2003), an anthology of contemporary poems for use in schools and was a guest editor for the 2006 edition of //The Best American Poetry//.

About Collins, the poet [|Stephen Dunn] has said, "We seem to always know where we are in a Billy Collins poem, but not necessarily where he is going. I love to arrive with him at his arrivals. He doesn't hide things from us, as I think lesser poets do. He allows us to overhear, clearly, what he himself has discovered."

In 2001, Collins was named U.S. Poet Laureate. His other honors and awards include 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". He has conducted summer poetry workshops in Ireland at University College Galway, and taught at Columbia University, Sarah Lawrence, and Lehman College, City University of New York. He lives in Somers, New York.

code Some days I put the people in their places at the table, bend their legs at the knees, if they come with that feature, and fix them into the tiny wooden chairs.
 * ** Some Days ** ||||  ||

All afternoon they face one another, the man in the brown suit, the woman in the blue dress, perfectly motionless, perfectly behaved.

But other days, I am the one who is lifted up by the ribs, then lowered into the dining room of a dollhouse to sit with the others at the long table.

Very funny, but how would you like it if you never knew from one day to the next if you were going to spend it

striding around like a vivid god, your shoulders in the clouds, or sitting down there amidst the wallpaper, staring straight ahead with your little plastic face?

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