Poet Billy Collins at First FOL Lecture, Monday

Billy Collins, two-term Poet Laureate of the United States (2001-3), is the lead lecturer in this season’s Friends of the Key West Library lecture series—Monday, January 13, 6:00 p.m., Studios of Key West, 600 White Street.  Doors open at 5:30 p.m.

Collins has been described as a “poet of plenitude, irony and Augustan grace” (The New Yorker)—a poet whose lines are “limpid, gently and consistently startling, more serious than they seem” (John Updike)—a poet who “puts the ‘fun’ back in ‘profundity’’’ (Alice Fulton).  He will read from his most recent collection, Aimless Love: New and Selected Poems (Random House, 2013), as well as perennial favorites from among his earlier poetry.

Collins’ many awards include his selection by Poetry Magazine as the 1994 Poet of the Year and the 2005 Mark Twain Award for Humor in Poetry.  He is presently a Distinguished Professor of English at Lehman College (CUNY) and a Distinguished Fellow at the Winter Park Institute of Rollins College, Florida.

The Friends of the Key West Library weekly lecture series is free and open to the public.  Seating is available on a first come, first served basis.  This year’s series runs for ten consecutive Mondays, ending on March 17.  Next lecturer is Carey Winfrey, January 20.  FOL’s newsletter, including a list of future lecturers, is located at http://friendsofthekeywestlibrary.org.