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

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.

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.