Billy Collins

Introduction

Billy Collins has been called arguably “the most popular poet in America,” not only for his accessible and often humorous work in print but also for his appearances on National Public Radio (on both Prairie Home Companion and Fresh Air in 1997), during which he read and talked about his work with engaging charm. Collins has received poetry fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Guggenheim Foundation. He has received the Bess Hokin Award, the Oscar Blumenthal Award, the Frederick Bock Prize, and the Levinson Prize from Poetry magazine; he has been named Literary Lion by the New York Public Library, and Questions About Angels won the National Poetry Series competition for 1991. In 2001, Collins was named U.S. poet laureate. -- Billy Collins Criticism