Billy Collins, the US Poet Laureate from 2001 to 2003, is the author of seven collections of poetry, most recently The Trouble with Poetry and Other Poems (Random House, 2005). A new collection titled Ballistics will be published by Random House in the fall. He is a Distinguished Professor of English at Lehman College (CUNY).

Also In VQR

• Nothing to Write Home About
• Portrait of the Reader With Cereal
• August
• The Great American Poem