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Press Releases | |
June 21, 2001
America's Next Poet Laureate to Read at Southampton CollegeBilly Collins Aims to be Accessible: Kicks Off Writers Series
Contact:
Darren Johnson
(631) 287 8313
Fax: (631) 283 4081Southampton College of Long Island University kicks off its 26th Annual Summer Writers Conference with one of America's best-loved poets, Billy Collins. Hailed for his accessible, yet wise verse, Collins is slated to be the country's next Poet Laureate, the Library of Congress announced this week.
Collins' reading in Duke Lecture Hall on Friday, June 29, at 8 p.m. will be his first public appearance since being named Poet Laureate, a position that begins in October as he replaces Stanley Kunitz. He is the author of six books of verse, including "Picnic, Lightning" (University of Pittsburgh, 1998), "The Art of Drowning" (1995), which was a finalist for the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize, and "Questions About Angels" (1991), which was selected by Edward Hirsch for the National Poetry Series.
Collins kicks off a writers series that runs nightly at 8 p.m. in Duke Lecture Hall through July 6 and includes other literary lions such as Time essayist and Southampton College Professor Roger Rosenblatt (June 30), O. Henry Award winner Matthew Klam (July 1), biographer and Time editor Stefan Kanfer (July 2), National Book Award winner Larry Heinemann (July 3), prize-winning poet Robert Phillips (July 5) and acclaimed novelist and Southampton College Professor Kaylie Jones (July 6). All readings are free and open to the public. In conjunction with the reading series, the College is also offering daytime graduate and undergraduate writers workshops. Call 631-287-8175 to register.
"Billy Collins' poetry is widely accessible," said the Library of Congress' James H. Billington in announcing the new Poet Laureate. "He writes in an original way about all manner of ordinary things and situations with both humor and a surprising contemplative twist."
Collins is a Professor of English at Lehman College of the City University of New York and a Writer in Residence at Sarah Lawrence College in Yonkers. His 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 "The Best American Poetry" for 1992, 1993 and 1997. He has received fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. For several years he has conducted summer poetry workshops in Ireland at University College Galway. Collins received his Ph.D. in Romantic Poetry from the University of California and currently lives in Somers in Westchester County with his wife, Diane.