Photo Credit: Lehigh University

President Barnes of Princeton Theological Seminary will engage in a public conversation with former United States Poet Laureate Billy Collins about his work, the nature of poetry, the task of writing, and connections between poetry and the life of faith. Collins will also read from his own work. 

An American phenomenon, Collins has changed the way in which readers perceive poetry by making poetry accessible to a wide audience and drawing on a voice that is approachable, insightful, and witty. No poet since Robert Frost has managed to combine high critical acclaim with such broad popular appeal.

Collins’ work has appeared in a variety of periodicals including The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and The American Scholar, he is a Guggenheim fellow and a New York Library “Literary Lion.” He has published ten collections of poetry, including Questions About Angels (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1999), The Art of Drowning (University Pittsburgh Press, 1995), Sailing Alone Around the Room: New & Selected Poems (Random House, 2002), Nine Horses (Random House, 2003), The Trouble With Poetry and Other Poems (Random House, 2007), Ballistics (Random House, 2010), Horoscopes for the Dead (Random House, 2012), Picnic, Lightning (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1998), as well as a collection of his haiku, She Was Just Seventeen (Modern Haiku Press, 2006).

In June 2001, Collins was appointed United States Poet Laureate 2001–2003. In January 2004, he was named New York State Poet Laureate 2004–06. He is a distinguished professor of English at Lehman College of the City University of New York.

M. Craig Barnes is the seventh president of Princeton Theological Seminary and the author of The Pastor as Minor Poet: Texts and Subtexts In the Ministerial Life (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2008), which explores poetry as a metaphor for pastoral ministry.

Admission is free and open to the public.