On Wednesday, Oct. 8 Elizabethtown College welcomed Billy Collins to campus. Collins, a former poet laureate, has written work that has appeared in a variety of periodicals including “The New Yorker,” “The Paris Review” and “The American Scholar.”  His books are immensely popular and his last three collections of poems have broken sale records for poetry.

Among the honors Collins has received are fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts and the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation. He has also won the Oscar Blumenthal Prize, the Bess Hokin Prize, the Frederick Bock Prize and the Levinson Prize awarded by “Poetry Magazine.”  Collins received the Aiken-Taylor Award in Modern American Poetry, the Hall-Kenyon Prize and the Mailer Prize for Poetry. In October 2004, Collins was selected as the inaugural recipient of the Poetry Foundation’s Mark Twain Award for Humor in Poetry. In June 2001, Collins was appointed the United States Poet Laureate.  In January 2004, he was named New York State Poet Laureate.

On Wednesday afternoon, Collins arrived to have dinner with 10 students who have studied Collins’ poetry in their creative writing course, as well as members of the College’s English department and other faculty. Afterward, Collins headed to Leffler Chapel and Performance Center where he gave a short reading of his poetry to an audience including Etown students and faculty and Elizabethtown Community members.

Collins began with a few short poems, such as “Cheerios,” “To My Favorite Seventeen Year Old High School Girl” and “Drinking Alone,” explaining each piece before reading them aloud.  Collins also shared a few of his more humorous anecdotes in regards to his poetry.

“I actually received an email after one of my readings, and the woman had written me just to tell me how everyone was still talking about me. I received another email not too long ago from her letting me know that they had stopped,” Collins said.

“It was a strikingly different experience hearing Billy Collins read his poems to a large group rather than reading them in a small group. There was a lot more laughter at the reading, and there was a clearer understanding of his thought process.  I really enjoyed hearing his intentions in writing each poem,” Megan Tindell, a sophomore English literature major, said.

At the end of his reading, Collins took time for a few questions. Some students asked about his approach to poetry and how he might define it. A member of the community asked if Collins had ever written in any other form of writing, such as prose, and if he enjoyed it as much as writing poetry.

“I’m not one for writing prose. When I read a poem, I expect it to be a conversation between me and the writer. If there’s more than one character, a character other than me or the writer, I’ll stop reading. If I see the word ‘Dad’ or ‘Mom’ I’ll stop reading and move on to the next poem. If you find yourself having trouble with that, you should probably be writing prose not poetry,” Collins said.

After the reading, the audience moved to the lobby of Leffler Chapel and Performance Center where there were refreshments and copies of Collins’ poetry collections available to purchase. Collins was available for book signings as well.

Collins is currently a Distinguished Professor of English at Lehman College of the City University of New York, as well as a Senior Distinguished Fellow of the Winter Park Institute at Rollins College.