Taking Off Emily Dickinson's Clothes

‘Billy Collins is one of my favourite poets in the world’ Carol Ann Duffy Readers will only have to open this book at random to realize the privation a life without Billy Collins has been. A writer of immense grace and humanity, Billy Collins shows how the great forces of history and nature converge on the tiniest details of our lives - and in doing so presents them in a new radiance. He is also unbelievably funny. ‘The most popular poet in America’ New York Times ‘Billy Collins writes lovely poems . . . Limpid, gently and consistently startling, more serious than they seem, they describe all the worlds that are and were and some others besides’ John Updike ‘Billy Collins’ medium is a rare amalgam of accessibility and intelligence. I’d follow this man’s mind anywhere. Expect to be surprised’ Michael Donaghy ‘Smart, his strings tuned and resonant, his wonderful eye looping over the things, events and ideas of the world, rueful, playful, warm voiced, easy to love’ E. Annie Proulx

Billy Collins is the author of twelve poetry collections, including Taking Off Emily Dickinson’s Clothes, Whale Day, and Horoscopes for the Dead. He has received fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. A professor of English at Lehman College, he was appointed Poet Laureate of the United States for 2001 to 2003, and Poet Laureate of New York State from 2004 to 2006. In 2016 he was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He lives with his wife in Westchester County, NY.