Poet laureate Billy Collins to serve again

? Billy Collins will serve a second one-year term as U.S. poet laureate, the Library of Congress announced Thursday.

The library cited his program for getting schools to choose a poem a day for pupils to read, silently or aloud. It said the program “has been greeted with great enthusiasm across the country.”

Collins designed a Web site and drew up a list of poems to choose from, including some of his own verse. He has published six books of poems over the past 25 years, with titles like “The Art of Drowning” and “The Apple that Astonished Paris.” A teacher of long experience, he has the title of distinguished professor of English at Lehman College in New York City.

His verse is noted for wit and ease of understanding, and he commands as much as $2,000 for a reading. As poet laureate he gets $35,000 a year to give free readings and advise the library on poetry.

He was appointed to his first term in June.

Collins will deliver a free lecture May 8 at the library on “Hedonism and the Pleasures of Poetry,” linking poetry to the philosophical idea that happiness is the proper aim of life.