Posted on 08/11/2004 6:03:16 PM PDT by Pharmboy
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) - Great Plains poet Ted Kooser of Nebraska will be the next poet laureate of the United States. Librarian of Congress James H. Billington planned to officially announce the appointment Thursday.
"Ted Kooser is a major poetic voice for rural and small town America and the first poet laureate chosen from the Great Plains," Billington said. "His verse reaches beyond his native region to touch on universal themes in accessible ways."
Kooser, 65, replaces Pulitzer Prize winner Louise Gluck in the one-year position.
The poet laureate's job carries with it few specific duties, to allow the writer to work on their own projects. The post includes an office at the Library of Congress, a $35,000 salary and an obligation to deliver and organize readings. Previous poets laureate include Robert Frost, Gwendolyn Brooks and Rita Dove.
"I really want to throw myself into this and do what I can to further people's interest in poetry," Kooser said Wednesday. "I see part of my job as being a promoter of poetry of all kinds."
Kooser has written 10 collections of poetry, most recently "Delights & Shadows," published this year.
His 1980 collection, "Sure Signs," received the Society of Midland Authors Prize for the best book of poetry by a Midwestern writer published in that year. His 2000 collection, "Winter Morning Walks: One Hundred Postcards to Jim Harrison," won the 2001 Nebraska Book Award for Poetry.
Kooser's work has appeared in a number of periodicals including The New Yorker, The Hudson Review and Prairie Schooner.
Kooser said he has always been dedicated to writing poetry that people can understand.
"What I think poetry can do is give people fresh ways to look at the world," Kooser said. "I attempt in my poems to take ordinary things and look at them in a new light."
An Iowa native and poet at age 18, Kooser graduated from Iowa State University in 1962 and earned his master's degree in English from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 1968. He is a visiting professor and teaches writing in the university's English Department.
Kooser, who is married to Lincoln Journal Star Editor Kathleen Rutledge, will take up his duties in the fall.
should have been Doug from Upland
$35,000 salary per annum? In Washington DC? Let's just hope there's a Murphy bed and shower in his LoC office.
My grandfather, Will Ferrell, was the poet laurette of Kansas.
No wait, that would be a Poet Lariat.
OK. Here's one of Ted's:
After Years
Ted Kooser
Today, from a distance, I saw you
walking away, and without a sound
the glittering face of a glacier
slid into the sea. An ancient oak
fell in the Cumberlands, holding only
a handful of leaves, and an old woman
scattering corn to her chickens looked up
for an instant. At the other side
of the galaxy, a star thirty-five times
the size of our own sun exploded
and vanished, leaving a small green spot
on the astronomer's retina
as he stood on the great open dome
of my heart with no one to tell.
I would have hoped DFU would have been in the running. Perhaps at least PL of CA.
So what kind of anti-American poetry does this guy write? </ sarc>
Lets have Baxter Black next. (Look it up.)
Lets have Baxter Black next. (Look it up.)
There once was a Husker named Kooser.....
Here' another one of Ted's:
In January
Ted Kooser
Only one cell in the frozen hive of night
is lit, or so it seems to us:
this Vietnamese café, with its oily light,
its odors whose colorful shapes are like flowers.
Laughter and talking, the tick of chopsticks.
Beyond the glass, the wintry city
creaks like an ancient wooden bridge.
A great wind rushes under all of us.
The bigger the window, the more it trembles.
OK.
Baxter Black, described by the New York Times as '…probably the nation's most successful living poet,"…thinks it's an exaggeration.
This former large animal veterinarian can be followed nationwide through his column, National Public Radio, public appearances, television and also through his books, cd's, videos and website, www.baxterblack.com.
Baxter lives in Benson, Arizona, between the Gila River and the Gila monster, the Mexican border and the Border Patrol and between the horse and the cow---where the action is.
He still doesn't own a television or a cell phone, and his idea of a modern convenience is Velcro chaps.
Everything about Baxter is cowboy; his cartoonish mustache, his personality and his poetry. He makes a living shining a spotlight on the flaws and foibles of everyday cowboy life. He demonstrates that it is the truth in his humor that makes it funny.
So, in a nut shell (where some believe he may have evolved) there is considerably more to Baxter than just an entertainer. He is the real thing. Because, as he says, "It's hard to be what you aren't."
ME: NPR??
Nothing rhymes.
I don't think Ted writes that kind of poetry...(LOL)
I kinda thought this would be a tough crowd...
Loved him on Saturday Night Live. You must be quite young.
I hope he didn't teach you to spell;)
described by the New York Times as '…probably the nation's most successful living poet,"
Yeah, I know. But he's good anyway.
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