later. It really is not an end in itself, but a means to an end.” Underlying his humor
is something darker. In the frequently anthologized “I Chop Some Parsley While
Listening to Art Blakey’s Version of ‘Three Blind Mice’” the lighthearted image of
the speaker musing on the blindness of nurseryrhyme creatures leads into a medi-
tation on loss and empathy. Other poems are more consistently serious in tone. In
“Forgetfulness” Collins imagines the loss of memory that comes with aging, and he
ponders mortality in “Boy Shooting at a Statue.” “The Names,” a moving poem that
he read to a special joint session of Congress in September 2002, lists the victims of
the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks.
Collins has also done much to encourage Americans to make poetry a part
of their everyday lives. As U.S. poet laureate for two terms, from 2001 to 2003,
Collins was influential in shaping American reading tastes through Poetry 180, a
program designed to encourage high-school students to read poetry aloud rather
than analyzing it. He was named a “Literary Lion” by the New York Public Library
in 1992, received the Poetry Foundation’s first Mark Twain Award for his use of
humor in 2004, and served as New York State poet laureate in 2004–2005. Col-
lins does have some detractors: Jeredith Merrin, for example, concedes that he is
“not without some rhetorical skills, charm, and wit” but ultimately finds his work
“disappointingly monotonous and slight.” Despite such criticism, Collins’s appeal
remains strong, and through his writing and his efforts to promote the work of
others he has helped to broaden the appeal of poetry and make it relevant to the
lives of more people.
Students interested in learning more about Collins and in sampling his
work will find “Billy Collins: Online Resources” at the Library of Congress web-
site (http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/collins/) useful. Maintained by Peter
Armenti, it provides extensive links to biographies, press releases, criticism, inter-
views, poems, and audio and video recordings. Also offering biographical informa-
tion and samples of Collins’s work are the websites of the Academy of American
Poets (http://poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/278) and the Poetry Foundation
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poet.html?id=80600. A book-length
study of Collins’s work has not yet been published, but reviews of particular col-
lections can be found in publications such as The New York Times. Longer essays,
dealing with several books, include those by Merrin and Ernest Hilbert, both of
whom take a negative view of Collins’s oeuvre. The chapter on Collins in Michael
D. Sharpe’s Popular Contemporary Writers (2006), which is geared toward young-
adult readers, takes a more objective view. Interviews, the Poetry 180 website, and
the introductions to anthologies Collins has edited provide insights into his life,
experience as a teacher, influences, and writing process.
TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION AND RESEARCH
- Collins is an entertaining and talented reader of his own work. Students can
listen to recordings of him delivering his own poems on The Best Cigarette
(1997), which can be downloaded at http://www.bestcigarette.us/, and in
the audiobook Billy Collins Live: A Performance at the Peter Norton Symphony
Space (2005), with an introduction by Bill Murray. A list of other audio and