Billy Collins (born March 22, 1941) is an American poet, appointed as Poet Laureate of the United States from 2001 to 2003.He is a Distinguished Professor at Lehman College of the City University of New York and is the Senior Distinguished Fellow of the Winter Park Institute, Florida. Collins was recognized as a Literary Lion of the New York Public Library (1992) and selected as the New York State Poet for 2004 through 2006. He is (in 2015) a teacher in the MFA program at Stony Brook Southampton.He received Norman Mailer Prize for Distinguished Poetry in 2014.