Billy Collins

Former U.S. and New York poet laureate Billy Collins shares three poems from his new book Aimless Love: New and Selected Poems, and chooses three songs to go with them. 

Two-term Poet Laureate of the United States, Billy Collins, discusses putting together his first compilation of new and selected poems in 12 years, Aimless Love. He talks about his singular voice, which combines plain speech with imaginative surprise.

In the months since Detroit filed for bankruptcy, there’s been a lot of discussion over who or what it would take to repair the city.  A new nonprofit called Write A House has one nov...

You probably know his work from your subway reading -- he was commissioned to write "Grand Central" to celebrate the terminal's 100th anniversary and it was reprinted on the trains and on MetroCards.  

Billy Collins, former U.S. (and New York State) Poet Laureate, professor of English at Lehman College at the City University of New York, and author of Aimless Love: New and Selected Poems (Random House, 2013), talks about that poem and those in his new collection.

This week we’ll be playing short conversations we had with recent guests of the show about what 9/11 and the last decade have meant to them. Billy Collins was poet laureate of the United States on 9/11 and we spoke to him about the attacks after his appearance on the program last April.

Billy Collins, Poet Laureate of the United States from 2001 to 2003 and Poet Laureate of New York State from 2004 to 2006, talks about the art of writing poetry and his latest collection, Horoscopes for the Dead: Poems.

Billy Collins has lived in Westchester County, north of New York City, for many years. We asked the former poet laureate if he had a poem about suburban life, and he wrote back with (the as yet unpublished) "Her." He reads it for Studio 360.

Billy Collins served two terms as U.S. Poet Laureate from 2001 to 2003, and is now the New York State Poet Laureate. As U.S. Laureate he worked to raise the profile of poetry among readers, launching the Poetry 180 program to introduce high school students to the work ...