Billy Collins is an American phenomenon. No poet since Robert Frost has managed to combine high critical acclaim with such broad popular appeal. The typical Collins poem opens on a clear and hospitable note but soon takes an unexpected turn; poems that begin in irony may end in a moment of lyric surprise. No wonder Collins sees his poetry as "a form of travel writing" and considers humor "a door into the serious." It is a door that many thousands of readers have opened with amazement and delight.

Billy Collins has published eight collections of poetry, including Questions about Angels; The Art of Drowning; Picnic, Lightning; Taking off Emily Dickinson’s Clothes; Sailing Alone Around the Room: New and Selected Poems; Nine Horses; The Trouble With Poetry and Other Poems; and Ballistics. A collection of his haiku, titled She Was Just Seventeen, was published by Modern Haiku Press in fall 2006. He also edited two anthologies of contemporary poetry: Poetry 180: A Turning Back to Poetry and 180 More: Extraordinary Poems for Every Day, and he edited Bright Wings: An Illustrated Anthology of Poems about Birds, with paintings by David Allen Sibley (2009).