Billy Collins, U.S. Poet Laureate from 2001 to 2003, visited with students and gave a public reading of his work Monday, Sept. 26. Details...
Collins’ last three collections have broken sales records for poetry and last year, he was named New York State Poet Laureate through 2006.
During a question-and-answer session with Elon students in Whitley Auditorium Monday afternoon, Collins said poetry evolved in early cultures as a way of memorizing and passing down important information. “Where did your tribe come from, where did your people live, what were the migration patterns of the animals you hunted? Some of this information was vitally important,” Collins said.
In response to a student’s question about his favorite time of day to write, Collins said the morning is best for him. “I like it because my head hasn’t been contaminated by public language yet. I haven’t read the news yet, or had a fight with my wife yet or even heard the dog yet.”
Collins, who serves as Distinguished Professor of English at Lehman College in New York, said it’s better to start a poem without a destination in mind. “The pen is an instrument of discovery. It’s a little flashlight. Writing is an adventure. Not knowing where you’re going is a good thing when writing poetry.”
Collins has published eight poetry collections including “The Trouble with Poetry & Other Poems” and received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. His appearance at Elon was sponsored by the Liberal Arts Forum and the English department.