{"product_id":"conversations-with-billy-collins-paperback-softback-9781496840677","title":"Conversations with Billy Collins (Paperback \/ softback) 9781496840677","description":"\u003cfont face=\"Georgia\"\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"6\"\u003eConversations with Billy Collins\u003c\/font\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"4\"\u003eJohn Cusatis (Edited by)\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e9781496840677\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003ePaperback \/ softback, published 27 July 2022\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e234 pages\u003cbr\u003e22.8 x 15.2 x 1.3 cm, 0.151 kg\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003eBilly Collins \"puts the ‘fun’ back in profundity,\" says poet Alice Fulton. Known for what he has called \"hospitable\" poems, which deftly blend wit and erudition, Collins (b. 1941) is a poet of nearly unprecedented popularity. His work is also critically esteemed and well represented in \u003ci\u003eThe Norton Anthology of American Literature\u003c\/i\u003e. An English professor for five decades, Collins was fifty-seven when his poetry began gathering considerable international attention.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eConversations with Billy Collins\u003c\/i\u003e chronicles the poet’s career beginning with his 1998 interview with Terry Gross on \u003ci\u003eFresh Air\u003c\/i\u003e, which exponentially expanded his readership, three years prior to his being named United States Poet Laureate. Other interviewers range from George Plimpton, founder of the \u003ci\u003eParis Revi\u003c\/i\u003ee\u003ci\u003ew\u003c\/i\u003e, to Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Henry Taylor to a Presbyterian pastor, a physics professor, and a class of AP English Literature students.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Over the course of the twenty-one interviews included in the volume, Collins discusses such topics as discovering his persona, that consistently affable voice that narrates his often wildly imaginative poems; why poetry is so loved by children but often met with anxiety by high school students; and his experience composing a poem to be recited during a joint session of Congress on the first anniversary of 9\/11, a tragedy that occurred during his tenure as poet laureate. He also explores his love of jazz, his distaste for gratuitously difficult poetry and autobiographical poems, and his beguiling invention of a mock poetic form: the paradelle. Irreverent, incisive, and deeply life-affirming—like his twelve volumes of poetry—these interviews, gathered for the first time in one volume, will edify and entertain readers in the way his sold-out readings have done for the past quarter century.\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003c\/font\u003e","brand":"University Press of Mississippi","offers":[{"title":"Brand New","offer_id":52681262268696,"sku":"9781496840677","price":21.56,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/freshlyprintedbooks.co.uk\/products\/conversations-with-billy-collins-paperback-softback-9781496840677","provider":"Freshly Printed Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}