Who ever thought such a story would take place in the poetry world?

It all began on Sunday, Dec. 19, 1999, when the New York Times ran a story about poetry on the front page, something none of the many poets I talked to while researching this story could remember ever having happened before. But there it was: an article by Bruce Weber, one of the Times' top cultural reporters, about Billy Collins, who Weber contended was, based on sales figures, "the most popular poet in America." (Admittedly, many of my sources mocked the claim. One acidly pointed out, "Sales figures would indicate that, actually, Jewel is our leading poet.")

There was no denying that Collins was hot. His popularity had soared after a couple of 1998 appearances on Garrison Keillor's "A Prairie Home Companion" showcased his funny and accessible poems, and within weeks sales of his new collection, "Picnic, Lightning," had topped 20,000 copies -- bestseller status for a poetry book. (This reviewer, by the way, gave it a rave.)

Soon Collins was in demand as a reader at colleges and reading programs around the country, and his three most recent books -- "Picnic, Lightning," "Questions About Angels" and "The Art of Drowning" -- were on the poetry bestseller list at Amazon.com. Within a few months, the biggest publishing house in the world came calling. In the spring of 1999 Random House lured Collins away from his publisher, the tiny University of Pittsburgh ("Pitt") Press, with a three-book, six-figure contract. For a literary poet, it was an unprecedented offer. And whether other poets like Collins' work or not, the deal's lavishness seemed to buoy the spirits of the entire poetry community, coming, as it did, at a bleak time; as Manhattan's publishing giants have grown explosively bigger via conglomeration, they've become less interested than ever in low-profit poetry.

Then came the Times story. The very fact that Collins could get himself on the front page of the newspaper of record seemed like cause for celebration.

But despite Weber's glowing portrait of Collins -- he opened with a dramatic scene of the poet reading to some not so poetically inclined high school students and keeping them "in his thrall" -- the article was actually about the business of publishing poetry. Specifically, it reported on negotiations between Random House and the Pitt Press for the rights to some of Collins' poems.

Random House, Weber reported, had been just two months away from publishing a volume of Collins' selected poetry -- a collection of 80 previously published poems -- when the university press refused permission to reprint the 61 poems Collins had previously published with Pitt, forcing cancellation of the "already completed" book. Weber termed Pitt's refusal "an affront to Mr. Collins" and cited anonymous "publishing executives" describing it as a nearly unprecedented attempt by a publisher to "unduly stand in the way of an author's success."

But, as was revealed when negotiations between the two publishers finally concluded late last month, the true story -- and Weber's own interest in it -- was considerably more complicated.

"I became almost physically ill," Pitt Press director Cynthia Miller told me, describing the moment when she first saw the Times story last December and read the headline -- "On Literary Bridge, Poet Hits Roadblock." Miller knew instantly that what she'd considered typical rights negotiations had been turned into something else.

What the average reader learned first from Weber's article was that Collins is "weary after almost thirty years of teaching English," though he nonetheless gives his all to his students. Weber then went on to marvel at other aspects of Collins' popularity before finally getting to the disagreement between his publishers. That, Weber limned quickly: Miller had abruptly "denied" Random House the right to reprint poems that would make up over three-quarters of "Sailing Alone Around the Room," the volume of Collins' selected poems.

Weber briefly quoted Miller's all-business explanation -- allowing reprints from Pitt's recent Collins books would hurt a "return on that investment" -- then the reporter called in a large cast to give damning evidence against her. The anonymous "publishing executives" were joined by Random House associate publisher Mary Barr, who said, "This is an anomalous hurdle, unprecedented for poetry," and "it would have been beyond prophetic for us to predict that Pittsburgh would be this obstinate." Weber wrote that "Mr. Collins and Random House" contended that the selected volume would only help sales of Pitt's books and paraphrased the 58-year-old Collins' complaint that "he has already earned what is generally considered the special honor" -- that is, the publication of a volume of selected work -- that more typically goes to older poets.

In what is perhaps the article's most scathing accusation, Collins' agent, Chris Calhoun, angrily implied that Pitt had demanded an extortionate amount of money -- some $200,000 -- for the reprint rights. "And two complimentary review copies," Calhoun added sardonically.

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