Leaves of Grass, Still Growing After 150 Years - Professor Billy Collins
November 03, 2004

Billy Collins is the author of five books of poetry. His poetry has appeared in anthologies, textbooks, and a variety of periodicals including Poetry, The American Poetry Review, The American Scholar, Harper's, The Paris Review, The New Yorker, and The Atlantic Monthly. His work is regularly featured in The Best American Poetry and in the Pushcart Prize anthology. Prof. Collins has received fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts, The National Endowment for the Arts, and the Guggenheim Foundation. He has also won the Bess Hokin Prize, the Frederick Bock Prize, the Oscar Blumenthal Prize, the Wood Prize and the Levinson Prize--all awarded by Poetry magazine. In 1992 he was chosen by the New York Public Library to serve as a "Literary Lion." He is a Distinguished Professor of English at Lehman College (CUNY) He served as United States Poet Laureate for 2001-2003. He was appointed New York State Poet Laureate 2004-2006. This lecture focuses on one poets assessment of the abiding strengths and influence of Walt Whitmans decisive poem, Leaves of Grass, a century and a half after its publication.