By Staff
Tickets are now on sale for the Oct. 27 appearance of former Poet Laureate of the United States Billy Collins. Mr. Collins' appearance is the fall event of the Dogwood Fine Arts Festival.
Collins has published seven 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 and Nine Horses.
In the book he edited, Poetry 180: A Turning Back to Poetry, Collins beckons readers to return to poetry with an anthology of poems that exposes the richness and diversity of the form. His work has also appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review and The American Scholar.
Collins is a favored guest on Garrison Keillor's Prairie Home Companion. Included among the honors Collins has received are fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. He has also been awarded the Oscar Blumenthal Prize, the Bess Hokin Prize, the Frederick Bock Prize and the Levinson Prize - all awarded by Poetry magazine.
He has been a writer-in-residence at Sarah Lawrence College and served as a Literary Lion of the New York Public Library. He is a Distinguished Professor of English at Lehman College, City University of New York, where he has taught for the past 30 years.
In June 2001, Collins was appointed U.S. Poet Laureate (2001-2003).
In January 2004, Collins was named New York State Poet Laureate 2004-06. Tickets for Collins' lecture are available by calling Rich and Teri Frantz at 269/782-8070.
Tickets cost $25 main floor, $20 first balcony, $15 second balcony and $60 for private reception tickets which include premium seating for the lecture. Discount rates are available for groups of 8 or more.