About Billy Collins
William James Collins is an American poet who served as the Poet Laureate of the United States from 2001 to 2003. He was a Distinguished Professor at Lehman College of the City University of New York, retiring in 2016. Collins was recognized as a Literary Lion of the New York Public Library (1992) and selected as the New York State Poet for 2004 through 2006. In 2016, Collins was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. As of 2020, he is a teacher in the MFA program at Stony Brook Southampton. In 1975 Collins founded The Mid-Atlantic Review with his friends Walter Blanco and Steve Bailey. In 2012, Collins became Poetry Consultant for Smithsonian Magazine. In 1997, Collins recorded The Best Cigarette, a collection of 34 of his poems, that would become a bestseller.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.