In case you missed the news, Ted Kooser served as Poet Laureate of the United States for two years, 2004-2006. You can read more about the award and the present recipient find tons of other interesting information about the award.

Shy and rather reclusive, Ted said of this great honor, "I'm in the catbird seat."

Indeed.

Ted Kooser read at Peru State in March of 2005, and you can download an edition of the Alpha Chi Recorder (click to download in PDF format Volume 49, Number 3 from 2006) that contains a short article I wrote about Kooser--and that, thank the upper welkin, he enjoyed--and his visit to Peru State College.

Like Charles Fort, Ted Kooser came to Nebraska Poetry from a rather different avenue. Whereas Fort is an African- American from the East Coast, Ted was raised in the Midwest, hailing originally from Iowa. Unlike most of the people in our anthology, however, Kooser does not have a strong connection with academics, though he does now teach at UNL part time.

"I worked in the insurance business for thirty-five years," he tells us (223).

And during that time, he managed to find time to write poetry. A cancer survivor, as he notes in the interview, he finds time and poetry precious commodities.

In other respects, of course, he shares much in common with the other writers, especially his connection to land and the people he knows. As he underscores well, good poetry does not have to come from unhappiness or a terrible childhood:

"There's been this persistent romantic myth of the artist coming from a troubled childhood." (224)

On the other hand, childhood does provide tremendous and poignant inspiration for all writers: good writing can certainly address pleasing experiences.

Note, for instance the attention to detail in his celebration of the state, "So This is Nebraska." And pay close attention as well to the stanza form, the rhythm, and the manner in which he manipulates lines, with some bleeding into the next stanza--look, for instance, at the manner in which the line of the next-to-last stanza connects with the final four lines. The poem, in other words, has great order and rhythm.

Read the lines out loud and feel the relationships among words.

Do not let what seem simple lines throw you: Kooser is a master craftsman, equal to the poet of "Richard Cory." Take the time to read carefully the poems in the anthology and on the links. Recite them out loud.

And read with care "Abandoned Farmhouse," a wonderful poem to talk about with respect to form. You will have a chance to discuss the poem's form on the Discussion Thread devoted for the poems of Fort and Kooser in the context of what Chapter Seven discusses.

As noted in the discussion about Charles Fort, Ted Kooser sees a close relationship between his watercolors and his poetry--and both can frustrate the hell out of him.

"Imagistic writing, I think, is like painting." (224)

And what he has to say coordinates well with what our text argues: one strives for perfection, to be sure, but part of the journey, a most integral aspect of the adventure, describes the process, the efforts at revision:

"I do extensive revision in my writing." (225)

Remember Kooser's words.

He begins with an image and then revises a great deal.

He also says that writing for him describes a bond with himself: the trust in images, in what, in fact, Welch calls "The Hidden Head":

"I've learned over the years that it's very useful to trust the metaphors that come to your mind even though they seem off-the-wall at first." (225)

So have faith in your ideas and run with them.

As Kooser says, however, good poetry comes from sober thought.

I will leave the reading to you of this interesting interview, especially those parts where, like Welch, Kooser talks freely about what goes wrong with much contemporary poetry.

But Kooser has some great advice I want to emphasize. Too often writers try to utilize poetry in particular and creative writing in general to confront directly their hurts, their emotions. Well, clearly personal writing helps people deal with their problems; but you do not write this kind of material for a class.

Instead, as Kooser emphasizes, you use your hurts and desires to enliven your images. As he says, "your feelings will surface no matter what you are writing. If you're carrying some grief at the moment, and your write a poem about a bouquet of daffodils in a sunny room, the grief will come forward through that somehow. I've told them this because students try to write overtly about their feelings, which is not successful often. Maybe these metaphors are a way for us to get to feelings in a circuitous manner" (226).

Here, Kooser, ever the teacher, offers some tremendous advice. Believe him.

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Last Modified: 09/11/2011