In Conversation: Billy Collins & Nick Laird

The Seamus Heaney Centre’s Professor Nick Laird joins the poet Billy Collins in conversation with students from Queen’s University Belfast.

Their conversation took place in April 2021 and is the fourth in a series of online events with Nick and other internationally renowned poets.

Described as ‘the most popular poet in America’, Billy Collins has served two terms as the US poet laureate (2001-03), was New York State poet laureate (2004-06), has read at The White House three times, and is a regular guest on National Public Radio programs.

Collins has also toured with the singer-songwriter Aimee Mann (2013 and 2015) and joined Paul Simon in a number of onstage conversations about poetry, music, and lyrics.

He earned a BA from the College of the Holy Cross, and both an MA and PhD from the University of California-Riverside. In 1975 he cofounded the Mid-Atlantic Review with Michael Shannon. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the New York Foundation for the Arts and has taught at Columbia University, Sarah Lawrence, and Lehman College, City University of New York, where he is a Distinguished Professor. He is also Senior Distinguished Fellow of the Winter Park Institute in Florida, and a faculty member at the State University of New York-Stonybrook.

International Poets’ Series