Mrs. Collins had the ability to recite verses on almost any subject, which she often did, and cultivated in her young son the love of words, both written and spoken.

He is a founding Advisory Board member of the CUNY Institute for Irish-American Studies at Lehman College.

Collins has taught and served as a visiting writer at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York as well as teaching workshops across the U.S. and in Ireland.

Collins is a member of the faculty of SUNY Stony Brook Southampton,[9] where (2015) he teaches poetry workshops.

During the summer of 2013 Collins guest hosted Garrison Keillor's popular daily radio broadcast, The Writer's Almanac, on NPR.

Collins and Paul Simon have engaged in four onstage conversations about poetry, music, and lyrics, starting in 2008.

The conversations were held in 2008 at New York's 92nd Street Y[10] and The Winter Park Institute,[11] in 2013 at the Chautauqua Institution,[12] and in 2013 at Emory University as part of the Richard Ellman Lectures in Modern Literature, where Simon was the 2013 Richard Ellman Lecturer.

Poet Laureate, Collins read his poem The Names at a special joint session of the United States Congress on September 6, 2002, held to remember the victims of the 9/11 attacks.

However, "The Names" was included in The Poets Laureate Anthology put out by the Library of Congress, for which Collins wrote the foreword.

Collins chose 180 poems for the program and the accompanying book, Poetry 180: A Turning Back to Poetry—one for each day of the school year.

In 2005, the CD was re-released under a Creative Commons license, allowing free, non-commercial distribution of the recording.

Collins has appeared on Keillor's radio show, A Prairie Home Companion, numerous times, where he gained a portion of his large following.

Collins was introduced by his friend, actor Bill Murray.Collins has been called "The most popular poet in America" by the New York Times.

[25] Collins moved in 2007 from New York to Winter Park, Florida, to be with Suzannah Gilman, his fiancée, an attorney and fellow poet.