By Kaitlin Thaney

On Friday, May 2, at 8 p.m. Northeastern University was graced with the presence of, according to some, an American phenomenon. Seen on the same pedestal as poet Robert Frost, Billy Collins, the U.S. Poet Laureate, astonished the packed Blackman Auditorium with his beautiful use of language, sarcasm, humor and imagery.

Collins’ work has been published in The New Yorker, The Paris Review and The American Scholar. His collections have set record sales for poetry and his audience, as seen at Friday’s performance, range from all ages, cultures and walks of life.

The staging of the night at NU was simplistic. A podium, a stool for his cup of water, and Collins, forced the audience to pay attention to his words and delivery of his works, which painted a picture more beautiful than a Van Gogh. His phrasing put the audience not only at the scene he was describing, but in his very own mind.

The night followed in a VH-1 Storytellers fashion with Collins’ readings and his input about the poem preceding it. He would tell of what the poem was really about to him, what drove him to write it, often including anecdotes from his very own life. Not only was the audience there to be privy to a reading by the U.S. Poet Laureate, but to discover what the real Billy Collins is like outside of his writings.

His humor kept the audience involved and in high spirits by saying, “Death is a big topic for poets — it gets us up in the morning.”

With topics varying from animals, to death, love and nature, his reading on Friday night included a taste for everyone’s individual palette.

Certain messages and phrases in his poems left the audience with thoughts that echoed in their heads even after the night was done. For example, in “On Turning Ten,” Collins writes,

“It seems only yesterday I used to believe there was nothing under my skin but light. If you cut me I could shine.

But now when I fall upon the sidewalks of life,

I skin my knees. I bleed.”

“I thought that his writing was very unique,” said Jacqueline Shu, a freshman communications major. “The way he wrote seemed like the way he was in real life and therefore was portrayed through his writing.”

The Center for the Arts put on a show that riveted the audience and took people from all different backgrounds on a journey through the eyes of a renowned artist in his own mastery.