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Community Corner

Sunken Garden Poetry Presents Billy Collins

BILLY COLLINS

United States Poet
Laureate (2001–2003)



“Billy
Collins writes lovely poems…Limpid, gently and consistently startling, more
serious than they seem, they describe all the worlds that are and were and some
others besides.” —John Updike



 

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Billy Collins is an American phenomenon. No poet since Robert Frost
has managed to combine high critical acclaim with such broad popular appeal.
His work has appeared in a variety of periodicals including The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and The American Scholar; he is a
Guggenheim fellow and a New York Public Library “Literary Lion.” His last three
collections of poems have broken sales records for poetry. His readings are
usually standing room only, and his audience – enhanced tremendously by his
appearances on National Public Radio – includes people of all backgrounds and
age groups. The poems themselves best explain this phenomenon. The typical
Collins poem opens on a clear and hospitable note but soon takes an unexpected
turn; poems that begin in irony may end in a moment of lyric surprise. No
wonder Collins sees his poetry as “a form of travel writing” and considers
humor “a door into the serious.” It is a door that many thousands of readers
have opened with amazement and delight.



 

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Please feel free to bring
blankets, lawn chairs, and a picnic dinner as you make yourself at home in the
Sunken Garden.  Admission is $10/person,
18 and under free.  

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