Billy Collins. Photo: James Duncan Davidson

Billy Collins returns to the TED stage to join a recent trend contemplating the cognition and emotional life of dogs. With characteristic dryness and meditative drone — and, we think, the same red sweater — he shares “A Dog on his Master” and “The Revenant.” He reads, to big laughs: “I am the dog you put to sleep, / as you like to call the needle of oblivion, / come back to tell you this simple thing: / I never liked you — not one bit.”