Billy Collins, distinguished professor of English at Lehman College of the City University of New York, has been chosen the 11th U.S. poet laureate, a one-year post that becomes effective in October when he will open the Library of Congress annual literary series with a reading, the New York Times reported June 21.
“Billy Collins’s poetry is widely accessible,” Librarian of Congress James Billington said in announcing the selection June 20. “He writes in an original way about all manner of ordinary things and situations with both humor and a surprising contemplative twist.”
Collins is the author of Sailing Alone around the Room (Random House, 2001), Picnic, Lightning (University of Pittsburgh, 1998), and The Art of Drowning (University of Pittsburgh, 1995). In 1992, he was “lionized” with a gold medallion at the annual Literary Lions gala at the New York Public Library.
Posted June 25, 2001.