Billy Collins

Visiting Professor, Creative Writing

Billy Collins is the author of eleven collections of poetry, most recently a new and selected collection titled Aimless Love (Random House, 2013). Others titles include Horoscopes for the Dead, Questions About Angels, The Art of Drowning, Sailing Alone Around the Room, Nine Horses, Ballistics and Picnic, Lightning. He is also the editor of three anthologies: Poetry 180: A Turning Back to Poetry, 180 More: Extraordinary Poems for Everyday, and Bright Wings: An Illustrated Anthology of Bird Poems. His poems have been published in a variety of periodicals including The New Yorker, Harper's, The Atlantic, and The American Scholar, and his work appears regularly in The Best American Poetry. A Guggenheim Fellow and a New York Public Library "Literary Lion," he served as New York State Poet (2004-5) and United States Poet Laureate (2001-2003). He was recently inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. This fall, Random House is publishing his newest collection, The Rain in Portugal.