See poet Billy Collins interviewed on WTCI/PBS (Chattanooga) during his visit to Sewanee last fall.

Billy Collins was the recipient of the Sewanee Review’s 25th Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry. Collins, called by the New York Times “the most popular poet in America,” visited Sewanee in November to give a reading and receive the award. Host Alison Lebovitz of “The A List” sat down in Rebel’s Rest on a rainy afternoon for an interview with Collins. Watch the interview here.

Collins was appointed this country’s poet laureate from 2001 through 2003. His poetry is distinctly his own. At times it can be funny, like Collins himself. He approaches writing poetry with a refreshingly relaxed and playful attitude, intent on highlighting the search for life’s mysteries. The poet whom Collins has been most compared to is Robert Frost—perhaps the highest praise an American poet can receive. Like Frost, Collins’s poetry is decidedly unpretentious, witty without lapsing into vulgarity, and capable of profound, if subtle, observations about life’s ordinary incidents.