What made Billy Collins who he is today?

Elsa Rottjers

a poets childhood and experiences make a big difference to their poetry, so i believe it is important to know little about what made Billy Collins the great poet he is today.

Billy Collins was born in New York City on March 22, 1941. He was the only child of William and Katherine Collins. His father was an electrician who later became a successful insurance broker on wall street. His mother was a nurse who then quit her job to raise Billy Collins. After the success of his father’s career Mr and Mrs. Collins together with Billy moved from Jackson heights in Queens, New York city to Westchester County in his junior year of high school. Katherine Collins had the ability to recite verses on almost any subject, which she often did, and cultivated in a young billy Collins the love for words, both written and spoken. Billy Collins interest in literature peaked and his love for words grew stronger each day. Collins recalled his own precocious behaviour at the age of four or five.

When company arrived at his family’s home, he sat in a chair and pretended to read an encyclopaedia, presuming that the guests were impressed. He remembers his first effort to record an impression in writing: At age ten, he was in the family car as his parents drove along the East River, and Collins, seeing a sail boat, asked his mother for writing materials. 

At church he was an altar boy, and he cites his memorization of Latin phrases for the Mass as an influence on his later writing. He memorized the words of the songs without knowing their meaning. 

Stephen Dunn, a fellow poet, once said, “We seem to always know where we are in a Billy Collins poem, but not necessarily where he is going. I love to arrive with him at his arrivals. He doesn't hide things from us, as I think lesser poets do. He allows us to overhear, clearly, what he himself has discovered.”