Ernest Hilbert, “Wages of Fame: The Case of Billy Collins,” Contemporary Poetry
Review (2006) http://www.cprw.com/Hilbert/collins2.htm [accessed 26
February 2010].
Describes a shift in American poetry in the 1980s from being an “academic affair”
to a more popular one. Hilbert provides an overview and evaluation of Collins’s
poetry, finding it positive with regard to its accessibility and humor but negative
in its unvaried form and theme.
Adam Kirsch, “The Taste of Silence,” Poetry, 191 ( January 2008): 340–
347 http://www.poetryfoundation.org/journal/article.html?id=180561
[accessed 26 February 2010].
For advanced students. Kirsch traces the influence on poetry of the thought of the
philosopher Martin Heidegger, ending with a discussion of Collins’s work and his
ability to make the “ordinary” image “extraordinary.”
Katherine Marsh, “The Selling of Billy Collins,” New York Times, 18 Novem-
ber 2001 http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/18/nyregion/citypeople-the-
selling-of-billy-collins.html [accessed 26 February 2010].
Charts Collins’s “fairy-tale transformation from local literary loner” to popular
poet whose public readings are “the literary equivalent of Beatlemania,” identify-
ing and discussing qualities that contribute to the success of Collins’s poetry.
Janet Maslin, “Tripping To and Fro, Happily Skewering Poetry,” New York Times,
2 October 2008 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/02/books/02masl.html
[accessed 26 February 2010].
Review of Ballistics (2008) that identifies features of Collins’s poetry not just in
this collection but also throughout his work: realism, the use of everyday images,
humor, and playfulness.
Jeredith Merrin, “Art over Easy,” Southern Review, 38 (Winter 2002): 202–214.
Review of Sailing Alone around the Room: New and Selected Poems that discusses
the controversy surrounding the inclusion of works from Collins’s three previous
books, which were published by a different firm. Although Merrin acknowledges
qualities that make Collins’s poetry popular, she criticizes it as “elevator music.”
Michael D. Sharpe, “Billy Collins,” in his Popular Contemporary Writers (Tarry-
town, N.Y.: Marshall Cavendish, 2006), pp. 453–466.
Most extensive critical overview of the poet’s life and works, with reading
guides to The Art of Drowning, Questions about Angels, Nine Horses, and Picnic,
Lightning.
Marion K. Stocking, “Books in Brief: Another Kind of Best,” Beloit Poetry Journal,
57 (Winter 2006–2007): 42–48.
Review of Collins’s anthology The Best American Poetry, 2006, in which his cri-
teria for choosing the poems are identified and evaluated. Although the essay
does not discuss Collins’s own poetry, it serves as a guide to the poetic forms and
themes that most interest Collins.