Like President Obama, Billy Collins has the distinction of being a two-termer. Happily for Mr. Collins, his job as U.S. poet laureate did not require making decisions such as whether to bomb Syria, or getting along with Congress. No, Billy Collins had only to concern himself with the matter of poetry.
And the man is on a mission to bring verse to the people. His recent stint of filling in for Garrison Keillor on “Writer’s Almanac” on public radio may well have brought him more listeners than ever. But in Vermont, it is Poetry 180: A Turning Back to Poetry, a book Collins edited, that is getting all the attention.
That’s because it is the 2013 selection for Vermont Reads, a statewide literary program available to nonprofit communities and organizations courtesy of the Vermont Humanities Council. In celebration of the program’s 10th anniversary, the council decided to focus on poetry.
What’s more, it’s bringing Billy Collins himself to Vermont this fall.
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