Free tickets available for Billy Collins lecture

Tickets may now be ordered at no charge to hear Billy Collins, the nation’s former poet laureate, speak at the Wisconsin Union Theater at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 22.

Tickets for the event can be requested through the Wisconsin Union Theater’s main box office 11:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. on weekdays and noon to 5 p.m. on Saturday. The box office can be reached by phone at (608) 262-2201, fax at (608) 265-5008 or e-mail at boxoffice@wut.org. Guests may pick up a maximum of four tickets at a time, although classes and other special groups may request an exception.

Collins, the 2001-2003 United States poet laureate, will give a poetry reading followed by audience questions and a book signing. He has written seven poetry collections, including his most recent works, Nine Horses, Sailing Alone Around the Room: New & Selected Poems, and Taking Off Emily Dickinson’s Clothes. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, The American Scholar, and Paris Review.

Collins’s appearance, which is sponsored by the University of Wisconsin–Madison Libraries, is one of the major opening events in the second annual Wisconsin Book Festival, Oct. 22-26. The first festival brought more than 8,000 people to Madison. More information about the 2003 program is at http://www.wisconsinbookfestival.org/.

The Friends of the University of Wisconsin–Madison Libraries are also one of the major sponsors of the Wisconsin Book Festival.