SOUTHERN VOICES 2010

~WINDOW TO THE WORLD~

18th Annual Conference

An Evening with Billy Collins

United States Poet Laureate 2001 - 2003

”From laugh-out-loud funny to deeply insightful, Billy Collins captures and delights his audience.”

FRIDAY, FEB. 19 at 7 p.m. in The Library Theatre - Reception follows.

Southern Voices warmly welcomes celebrated poet Billy Collins to our conference.

After the program, we invite you to join Mr. Collins on the Library Plaza for a reception and book signing. Books will be available for purchase.

“Luring his readers into the poem with humor, Billy Collins leads them unwittingly into deeper, more serious places, a kind of journey from the familiar to quirky to unexpected territory, sometimes tender, often profound.” - The New York
Times

Billy Collins is an American phenomenon.
Collins has earned a rare spot between critical respect and wide appeal. 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 Garrison Keillor's A Prairie Home Companion on National Public Radio – includes people of all backgrounds and age groups.

Collins explains, “My poetry is suburban, it’s domestic, it’s middle class, and it’s sort of unashamedly that, but I hope there’s enough imaginative play in there that it’s not simply poems about barbequing.” He continued, “I believe poetry belongs in unexpected places – in elevators and on buses and subways. That’s a good way to get it out of the classroom, out of the hands of academics and to bring it into public spaces.”

In an effort to accomplish just that, Collins edited Poetry 180, an anthology designed to bring very contemporary poetry to high school students. He has also published eight collections of his poetry, including Ballistics, The Art of Drowning, Taking Off Emily Dickinson’s Clothes and The Trouble With Poetry, and began an audio poetry channel for Delta Airlines. Viewing his poetry as “a form of travel writing,” Collins considers humor “a door into the serious.” It is a door that many thousands of readers have opened with amazement and delight.

In addition to serving as U.S. Poet Laureate, Collins has received fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. He was also recognized by the New York Public Library as a "Literary Lion." Currently, he is a Distinguished Professor of English at Lehman College of the City University of New York.

Introducing Billy Collins will be Robert Reeves, the founding director of the Stony Brook Southampton MFA in Writing and Literature, the publisher of The Southampton Review and the Director of the Southampton Writers Conference. A Birmingham native, Reeves has published two critically-acclaimed novels, Doubting Thomas and Peeping Thomas.

Attached Files: 

Download the Southern Voices 2010 Brochure