Nine Horses: Poems Random House Sept 2002 isbn: 0375503811 $21.95 buy Other Books by Billy Collins

Billy Collins, December 12

Thursday, 6pm
Longfellow Building, Askwith Hall
13 Appian Way, Cambridge
No tickets are required

Nine Horses, Billy Collins’s first book of new poems since Picnic, Lightning in 1998, is the latest curve in the phenomenal trajectory of this poet’s career. Already in his forties when he debuted with a full-length book, The Apple That Astonished Paris, Collins has become the first poet since Robert Frost to combine high critical acclaim with broad popular appeal. And, as if to crown this success, he was appointed Poet Laureate of the United States for 2001–2002, and reappointed for 2002–2003.

What accounts for this remarkable achievement is the poems themselves, quiet meditations grounded in everyday life that ascend effortlessly into eye-opening imaginative realms. These new poems, in which Collins continues his delicate negotiations between the clear and the mysterious, the comic and the elegiac, are sure to sustain and increase his audience of avid readers.

About the Author:

Billy Collins is the author of six collections of poetry, including Sailing Alone Around the Room; Questions About Angels; The Art of Drowning; and Picnic, Lightning. He is a Distinguished Professor of English at Lehman College of the City University of New York. Collins is the Poet Laureate of the United States.

Praise for the Author and Sailing Alone Around the Room:

"He may be a sort of poet not seen since Robert Frost."
—The Boston Globe

"It is difficult not to be charmed by Collins, and that in itself is a remarkable literary accomplishment."
—The New York Review of Books

"There are brainy, observant, spit-shined moments on almost every page....You finish feeling pleased that such a sensible and gifted man is America’s Poet Laureate—young writers have plenty to learn from his clarity and apparent ease."
—The New York Times Book Review