Saturday, April 23, 2016
8:00pm
Dinkelspiel Auditorium, Stanford University
Doors will open at 7:30PM
Free & open to the public but reservations required, preference to Stanford undergraduates and Stanford ID holders

Former U.S. poet laureate Billy Collins and singer-songwriter Aimee Mann met in 2011 at a Poetry Night event at the White House. From that initial encounter grew an idea to create a single evening of poetry, song, and conversation about their respective art forms. In this very special joint appearance, Collins and Mann will trade poems and songs, even try out their work in each other’s form, and discuss their respective forms and creative processes, offering insight into surprising differences and similarities, Join us for a rare evening with this unlikely pair of masters and discover something new about two of the oldest forms of storytelling.

Author of 15 books of poetry, Billy Collins has opened the door to poetry for many modern readers through his conversational, humorous but profound renderings of everyday loves and losses. A former U. S. Poet Laureate, Guggenheim Fellow, and NEA Fellow, he has also received many prizes, including Norman Mailer Prize and the Poetry Foundation’s Mark Twain Award for Humor in Poetry.

Indie rocker Aimee Mann leapt to fame in the 1980s as part of the band ‘Til Tuesday and since then has won over audiences with her literate and often and haunting songwriting on 8 solo albums, soundtracks for films like Paul Thomas Anderson’s film Magnolia, and recent collaboration with Ted Leo, The Both. She has also appeared in the Coen brothers’ film The Big Lebowski and made cameo appearances on The West Wing and Portlandia.

“[Aimee Mann is] one of the finest songwriters of her generation.”—The New York Times

“Collins shows us the spirit inherent in our daily lives.”—San Francisco Chronicle

This is event is being cosponsored by the Stanford Speakers Bureau.