Billy Collins and his poetry

I was surprised to learn of this poet named Billy Collins. He was the Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry in 2001 and 2002, gives reading all over the globe, and often reads his poems on NPR (which I listen to all the time), but somehow I have managed to not hear of him until now. I must say I really enjoyed these few poems we read this week, and I plan on looking up more in the future.
The first poem, Winter Syntax, was about the difficulty of forming a complete thought. Collins used the images of of a cold, winter night to explore the idea of how one comes by, and is able to express, a thought. "But the traveller persists in his misery" until he is finally able to get his point across. The next poem, Books, was about how a person can get lost in a book; how what we read can transport us into another world. It is a remembrance of days gone by and the adventures had by an avid reader. The third and last poem was entitled Introduction to Poetry. It was about how silly people can be about poetry. All they want is to have a firm meaning they can grasp onto while a poem has so much more to offer. Collins implores the reader to flow with the poem-to see where it will take them. He wants us to explore the images presented and decide for ourselves what the poem means to us individualy, not look for a clean-cut, starched universal meaning. He wants us to really get lost in the words and syntax and decide for ourselves where the poem is going to take us.