The History Teacher

American poet Billy Collins’s poem “The History Teacher” was published in his 1991 collection Questions about Angels. This collection was the first to launch Collins to national prominence and this poem is among his most well-known.

As an example of a Postmodern poem, the poem is both free verse without a strict structure and self-reflexive, as the poem is aware of its own construction. In a commentary on contemporary conversations surrounding children, education, and rising violence, Collins uses the voice of a fictional history teacher to depict how efforts to sugarcoat historical suffering and cruelty result in the students themselves becoming cruel and violent.

Poet Biography

Billy Collins was born William James Collins on March 22, 1941 in Manhattan. His mother was a nurse before staying home to raise Collins and his father worked on Wall Street.

In 1963, Collins received a bachelor’s in English from the College of the Holy Cross. He then attended the University of California, Riverside, where he earned his M.A. and PhD in Romantic Poetry.

Collins joined the Lehman College English faculty in 1968, where he taught until 2016.

In 1975, Collins, alongside Walter Blanco and Steve Bailey, founded The Mid-Atlantic Review. He also published his first collection, Pokerface.