Alison Hedge Coke
Reynolds Endowed Chair, 308.865.8672
UNK– Billy Collins, the United States Poet Laureate for 2001-2003, will present his best-selling poems at the University of Nebraska at Kearney on Monday, Sept. 27.
Collins, the third Reynolds Series presenter this fall, will speak at 8 p.m. in the Miriam Drake Theater, located in the UNK Fine Arts Building. The presentation is free and open to the public.
Collins has published nine collections of poetry. He was the 1994 Poet of the Year, and in 1997, Collins recorded “The Best Cigarette,” an audio collection of 34 poems, which became a best-seller. His last three collections of poetry have broken sales records for poetry. He has been a guest on National Public Radio numerous times, including Garrison Keillor’s radio show, “A Prairie Home Companion.” In 2002, Collins recorded two of his poems on Keillor’s collection “Good Poems.”
He has been awarded the Oscar Blumenthal Prize, the Bess Hokin Prize, the Frederick Bock Prize and the Levinson Prize. In 2004, Collins was awarded the Poetry Foundation’s Mark Twain Award for Humor in Poetry.
He was the New York State Poet Laureate for 2004-2006. Collins is a professor of English at Lehman College of the City University of New York.
A reception and autograph session will take place after the performance, and books and CDs will be available for purchase. All Reynolds Series readings are free and open to the public.
The 2010 Reynolds Series fall schedule, which features writers from across the United States, includes: Oct. 21, Lannan Literary Fellow Jon Davis; UNK student Reynolds Scholars, Thursday, Nov. 11; and Thursday, Nov. 18, Pulitzer Prize winning poet Natasha Trethewey.
