Let's be frank: Popular poets who also attracted critical acclaim were a rarity in the 20th century. They still are. Robert Frost had both a large audience and approval from critics and scholars. Allen Ginsberg ultimately did too, though they had divergent audiences.

Billy Collins has a big following now, and critics have embraced him too. His new collection, “Ballistics,” has a first printing of 40,000, which compares more accurately to the quantity for a well-known novelist rather th ...

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