Isabella Hyun from the Library of Congress speaks with Billy Collins, who will appear at the 2014 National Book Festival on August 30 in Washington, D.C.

Biography

Former Poet Laureate (2001-2003) Billy Collins has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation and the New York Foundation for the Arts. Bruce Weber of The New York Times has called Collins “the most popular poet in America.” While he was Poet Laureate, Collins created the popular Poetry 180 website (loc.gov/poetry/180/) for the Library of Congress, which offers a poem a day throughout the school year. Collins’ new collection of poems is “Aimless Love.”