Books by Ted Kooser
Flying At Night: Poems 1965-1985 (Pitt Poetry Series)
by Ted Kooser
Named U.S. Poet Laureate for 2004-2006, Ted Kooser is one of America's masters of the short metaphorical poem. Dana Gioia has remarked that Kooser has written more perfect poems than any poet of his generation.
In Flying at Night: Poems 1965-1985, Kooser has selected poems from two of his earlier works, Sure Signs and One World at a Time (1985). Taken together or read one at a time, these poems clearly show why William Cole, writing in the Saturday Review, called Ted Kooser "a wonderful poet," and why Peter Stitt, writing in the Georgia Review, proclaimed him "a skilled and cunning writer. . . . An authentic 'poet of the American people.'"
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Flying At Night: Poems 1965-1985 (Pitt Poetry Series)
by Ted Kooser
Named U.S. Poet Laureate for 2004-2006, Ted Kooser is one of America's masters of the short metaphorical poem. Dana Gioia has remarked that Kooser has written more perfect poems than any poet of his generation.
In Flying at Night: Poems 1965-1985, Kooser has selected poems from two of his earlier works, Sure Signs and One World at a Time (1985). Taken together or read one at a time, these poems clearly show why William Cole, writing in the Saturday Review, called Ted Kooser "a wonderful poet," and why Peter Stitt, writing in the Georgia Review, proclaimed him "a skilled and cunning writer. . . . An authentic 'poet of the American people.'"
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No copies available.
Weather Central (Pitt Poetry Series)
by Ted Kooser
Ted Kooser’s third book in the Pitt Poetry Series is a selection of poems published in literary journals over a ten year period by a writer whose work has been praised for its clarity and accessiblity, its mastery of figurative language, and its warmth and charm.
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The Poetry Home Repair Manual: Practical Advice for Beginning Poets
by Ted Kooser
Ted Kooser has been writing and publishing poetry for more than forty years. In the pages of The Poetry Home Repair Manual, Kooser brings those decades of experience to bear. Here are tools and insights, the instructions (and warnings against instructions) that poets—aspiring or practicing—can use to hone their craft, perhaps into art. Using examples from his own rich literary oeuvre and from the work of a number of successful contemporary poets, the author schools us in the critical relationship between poet and reader, which is fundamental to what Kooser believes is poetry’s ultimate purpose: to reach other people and touch their hearts.
Much more than a guidebook to writing and revising poems, this manual has all the comforts and merits of a long and enlightening conversation with a wise and patient old friend—a friend who is willing to share everything he’s learned about the art he’s spent a lifetime learning to execute so well.
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The Poetry Home Repair Manual: Practical Advice for Beginning Poets
by Ted Kooser
"No other poet seems better suited to represent the United States as its Laureate in this era than Ted Kooser, and The Poetry Home Repair Manual should enhance his grip on our slumbering Republic."—Larry Woiwode, Poet Laureate of North Dakota, in North Dakota Quarterly
Much more than a guidebook to writing and revising poems, this manual has all the comforts and merits of a long and enlightening conversation with a wise and patient old friend—a friend who is willing to share everything he’s learned about the art he’s spent a lifetime learning to execute so well.
Ted Kooser has been writing and publishing poetry for more than forty years. In the pages of The Poetry Home Repair Manual, Kooser brings those decades of experience to bear. Here are tools and insights, the instructions (and warnings against instructions) that poets—aspiring or practicing—can use to hone their craft, perhaps into art. Using examples from his own rich literary oeuvre and from the work of a number of successful contemporary poets, the author schools us in the critical relationship between poet and reader, which is fundamental to what Kooser believes is poetry’s ultimate purpose: to reach other people and touch their hearts.
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Local Wonders: Seasons in the Bohemian Alps (American Lives)
by Ted Kooser
Ted Kooser describes with exquisite detail and humor the place he calls home in the rolling hills of southeastern Nebraska—an area known as the Bohemian Alps. Nothing is too big or too small for his attention. Memories of his grandmother’s cooking are juxtaposed with reflections about the old-fashioned outhouse on his property. When casting his eye on social progress, Kooser reminds us that the closing of local schools, thoughtless county weed control, and irresponsible housing development destroy more than just the view.
In the end, what makes life meaningful for Kooser are the ways in which his neighbors care for one another and how an afternoon walking with an old dog, or baking a pie, or decorating the house for Christmas can summon memories of his Iowa childhood. This writer is a seer in the truest sense of the word, discovering the extraordinary within the ordinary, the deep beneath the shallow, the abiding wisdom in the pithy Bohemian proverbs that are woven into his essays.
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Winter Morning Walks : 100 Postcards to Jim Harrison (Poetry Series)
by Ted Kooser
A collection of poetry by Ted Kooser.
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Braided Creek: A Conversation in Poetry
I think every person needs to own this book.”Naomi Shihab Nye
Braided Creek contains more than 300 poems exchanged in this longstanding correspondence. Wise, wry, and penetrating, the poems touch upon numerous subjects, from the natural world to the nature of time. Harrison and Kooser decided to remain silent over who wrote which poem, allowing their voices, ideas, and images to swirl and merge into this remarkable suite of lyrics.
Each time I go outside the world
is different. This has happened
all my life.
*
The moon put her hand
over my mouth and told me
to shut up and watch.
*
A nephew rubs the sore feet
of his aunt,
and the rope that lifts us all toward grace
creaks on the pulley.
*
Under the storyteller’s hat
are many heads, all troubled.
"These little gems prove that less is often more." Library Journal
"There are poems on the natural world, aging, dying, friendship, love and eros. There is abundant humor... There also is distilled wisdom." Houston Chronicle
"So what we have here is a small book of finely etched verse by two experienced poets. It is something that many readers will want to carry around with them and dip into on occasion. Braided Creek is a vademecum or field guide for the soul." Bloomsbury Review
"Both Harrison and Kooser show a 'coming of wisdom with time.' Kooser has been diagnosed with cancer, which may in part account for the intensity of the language and the sweeping philosophical stance of these quiet poems by two gifted men." Rocky Mountain News
"Here's a book of glorious, intimate tidbits... filled with such small yet expansive moments, perfectly defined." The Memphis Commercial Appeal
"For those who have ears to hear, infinity hums in the taut lines and compact images of this conversation in poetry. Seamless, poignant and profound, Braided Creek is a book worth listening to time and again." The Wichita Eagle
"This book is superb... Simple in its language, spare in its style, Braided Creek presents dozens of short poems that resonate with truth, pain and radiance. Grudgingly acknowledging aging and illness, the verses here also clutch tightly to moments of good cheer, of life lived with spirit and grit and determination." The Kansas City Star
"It's a wonderful, rewarding book." Philadelphia Inquirer
In 2014, the Academy of American Poets asked each of their Chancellors to name an "essential book" and a "beloved book" and Naomi Shihab Nye's beloved book is Braided Creek: "I also recommend Braided Creek because the poems are so tiny and so succulent, each one a transporting hinge for the mind's happiest refreshing moments. I think every person needs to own this book. It easily brings you back to writing when you have felt far away or confused. It clarifies your spirit. Take a quick dip into the mixed back-and-forth voices of these two masters and delight. I have given more copies of this book away as gifts than any other book. And I know for certain that many people have appreciated it greatly. So, why not everyone?"
Jim Harrison is one of America’s beloved writers. He is best known for a collection of novellas, Legends of the Fall, and the epic novel Dalva. He lives in western Montana and southern Arizona.
Ted Kooser won the Pulitzer prize for his poetry collection Delights and Shadows. He served two terms as U.S. Poet Laureate and lives in Nebraska.
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$15.00
Delights & Shadows
by Ted Kooser
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry
Ted Kooser, who served as United States Poet Laureate (20042006), is a poet who works toward clarity and accessibility, so that each distinctive poem appears to be as fresh and bright and spontaneous as a good watercolor painting. He is a haiku-like imagist who imbues his poems with "tender wisdom,” and draws inspiration from the overlooked details of daily life.
Praise for Delights and Shadows:
"Ted Kooser...has a genius for making the ordinary sacred."The New York Times
"A sense of wonder and compassion runs through this Pulitzer Prize winning volume
Kooser's poetry is understated yet manages to skillfully illuminate the small moments of life."Christian Science Monitor
"[Kooser] brushes poems over ordinary objects, revealing metaphysical themes that way an investigator dusts for fingerprints. His language is so controlled and convincing that one can't help but feel significant truths behind his lines."The Philadelphia Inquirer
"There is a sense of quiet amazement at the core of all Kooser's work, but it especially seems to animate his new collection of poems, Delights & Shadows. Every delight is shadowed by darkness in this book of small wonders and hard dualisms."Edward Hirsch, The Washington Post
"Delights and Shadows is a book with a deep stillness at its center, perfectly self-contained."Carol Muske-Dukes, Los Angeles Times
"Kooser's ninth collection of poems reflects the simple and remarkable things of everyday life. That he often sees things we do not would be delight enough, but more amazing is exactly what he sees. Nothing escapes him; everything is illuminated
.Highly recommended."Library Journal
"Few poets depict the Midwest so accurately or with such tender regard... Kooser excels at the brief, imagistic poem."The Kansas City Star
"Delights and Shadows raises the voice of the poet above everything else. Each short, vivid poem on the page reads as if it were being spoken aloud. Details about cemeteries, dictionaries, a doctor's waiting room, and a jar of buttons bristle with sound and awareness. Kooser's ability to use brief lyrics to compose a music of discovery and regeneration makes his work radiant and consuming... This is not an extended, complex or experimental kind of writing, but poetry that rings true, allowing the human sound of being to exist on the page."Bloomsbury Review
"Here is the gift and fragility of life."The Wichita Eagle
"Kooser is a master of the subjective description. Empathetic without sentimentality, his eye ranges over all sorts of everyday subjects and finds material everywhere
wherever the unpredictable particularity of the world can be glimpsed
Perhaps Kooser’s success lies in his determination to see the
things of this world with such clarity and passion that their underlying mysteries, delights, and shadows also become clear, if only for a moment."The Georgia Review
"You can almost see Kooser behind the poems, watching the world like a sketch artist
Kooser displays the same kind of fluid strokes Degas used in his ballet pictures...He is an exquisite miniaturist of daily life."The Hartford Courant
"The poet finds magic in activities and objects typically considered mundane... Metaphors are the treasure of these short, imagistic poems, emphasizing the wonder and delight latent in what is often merely taken for granted."Harvard Review
"Kooser has written more perfect poems than any poet of his generation." Dana Gioia
"Kooser is straightforward, possesses an American essence, is humble, gritty, ironic and has a gift for detail and a deceptive simplicity."Seattle Post-Intelligencer
As Poet Laureate of the United States, Ted Kooser launched the weekly poetry column "American Life in Poetry," which appears in over 100 newspapers nationwide. He is the author of ten books of poems, including the collaboration with Jim Harrison, Braided Creek: A Conversation in Poetry (isbn 9781556591877).
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$17.00
Bag in the Wind
by Ted Kooser
In a singular first children’s book, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Ted Kooser follows a plastic bag on its capricious journey from a landfill into a series of townspeople’s lives.
One cold morning in early spring, a bulldozer pushes a pile of garbage around a landfill and uncovers an empty plastic bag — a perfectly good bag, the color of the skin of a yellow onion, with two holes for handles — that someone has thrown away. Just then, a puff of wind lifts the rolling, flapping bag over a chain-link fence and into the lives of several townsfolk — a can-collecting girl, a homeless man, a store owner — not that all of them notice. Renowned poet Ted Kooser fashions an understated yet compassionate world full of happenstance and connection, neglect and care, all perfectly expressed in Barry Root’s tender illustrations. True to the book’s earth-friendly spirit, it is printed on paper containing 100 percent recycled post-consumer waste and includes an author’s note on recycling plastic bags.
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House Held Up by Trees
by Ted Kooser
From Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Ted Kooser and rising talent Jon Klassen comes a poignant tale of loss, change, and nature's quiet triumph.
When the house was new, not a single tree remained on its perfect lawn to give shade from the sun. The children in the house trailed the scent of wild trees to neighboring lots, where thick bushes offered up secret places to play. When the children grew up and moved away, their father, alone in the house, continued his battle against blowing seeds, plucking out sprouting trees. Until one day the father, too, moved away, and as the empty house began its decline, the trees began their approach. At once wistful and exhilarating, this lovely, lyrical story evokes the inexorable passage of time — and the awe-inspiring power of nature to lift us up.
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Mr. Posey's New Glasses
by Ted Kooser
In a charming tale of an elderly man and his obliging young friend, former poet laureate Ted Kooser and newcomer Daniel Duncan invite us to look at the world with fresh eyes.
Mr. Posey is feeling gloomy. Everything seems dull. Maybe he needs new glasses? Perhaps a trip to the Cheer Up Thrift Shop with his energetic young neighbor, Andy, will help. But when the duo try on the glasses in the shop’s barrel, they’re in for a big surprise. One pair with stars for frames shows only constellations in a night sky. Round frames reveal a world all aswirl, while a heart-shaped pair makes everything pink. And as soon as Mr. Posey puts on the cat-eye framed glasses, fierce dogs start chasing him. No, thank you! But when Andy makes a simple observation, Mr. Posey’s view opens to a whole new world — and finally everything is brighter, different, and exciting.
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Lights on a Ground of Darkness: An Evocation of a Place and Time
by Ted Kooser
Like the yellow, pink, and blue irises that had been transplanted from house to house over the years, the stories of poet Ted Kooser’s family had been handed down until, as his mother lay ill and dying, he felt an urgency to write them down. With a poet’s eye for detail, Kooser captures the beauty of the landscape and the vibrancy of his mother’s Iowa family, the Mosers, in precise, evocative language.
The center of the family’s love is Kooser’s uncle, Elvy, a victim of cerebral palsy. Elvy’s joys are fishing, playing pinochle, and drinking soda from the ice chest at his father’s roadside Standard Oil station. Kooser’s grandparents, their kin, and the activities and pleasures of this extended family spin out and around the armature of Elvy’s blessed life.
Kooser has said that writing this book was the most important work he has ever undertaken because it was his attempt to keep these beloved people alive against the relentless erosion of time.
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The Blizzard Voices
by Ted Kooser
2007 Book Sense Poetry Top Ten selection
2007 Midwest Booksellers' Choice Award for Poetry, honoring Tom Pohrt (Illustrator)
This book is a collection of poems recording the devastation unleashed on the Great Plains by the blizzard of January 12, 1888. The Blizzard Voices is based on the actual reminiscences of the survivors as recorded in documents from the time and written reminiscences from years later. Here are the haunting voices of the men and women who were teaching school, working the land, and tending the house when the storm arrived and changed their lives forever.
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Sure Signs: New and Selected Poems (Pitt Poetry Series)
by Ted Kooser
Named U.S. Poet Laureate for 2004-2006, Ted Kooser is one of America's masters of the short metaphorical poem. Dana Gioia has remarked that Kooser has written more perfect poems than any poet of his generation. Long admired and praised by other poets, Kooser is also accesible to the reader not familiar with contemporary poetry.
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Red Stilts
by Ted Kooser
Red Stilts finds Pulitzer Prize-winner and former U. S. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser at the top of his imaginative and storytelling powers. Here are the richly metaphorical, imagistically masterful, clear and accessible poems for which he has become widely known. Kooser writes for an audience of everyday readers and believes poets “need to write poetry that doesn’t make people feel stupid.” Each poem in Red Stilts strives to reveal the complex beauties of the ordinary, of the world that’s right under our noses. Right under Kooser’s nose is rural America, most specifically the Great Plains, with its isolated villages, struggling economy, hard-working people and multiple beauties that surpass everything wrecked, wrong, or in error.
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Splitting an Order
by Ted Kooser
"Ted Kooser must be the most accessible and enjoyable major poet in America. His lines are so clear and simple." Michael Dirda, The Washington Post
"Readers [of Splitting an Order] will find 'characters' both strange and wonderful, animal or human. There is a sense that time is passing quickly and that everything worthy must be captured and savored." Library Journal, starred review
"Kooser's ability to discover the smallest detail and render it remarkable is a rare gift." Bloomsbury Review
Hailed by Library Journal as "a master of the single-metaphor poem," Pulitzer Prize winner and bestselling poet Ted Kooser calls attention to the intimacies of life through commonplace objects and occurrences. This collectionten years in the makingis rich with quiet and profound magnificence.
I like to watch an old man cutting a sandwich in half
. . . and then to see him lift half
onto the extra plate that he asked the server to bring,
and then to wait, offering the plate to his wife
while she slowly unrolls her napkin and places her spoon,
her knife and her fork in their proper places,
then smoothes the starched white napkin over her knees
and meets his eyes and holds out both old hands to him.
Ted Kooser is the author of numerous books of poetry and prose, including Delights and Shadows (Copper Canyon), which won the Pulitzer Prize. A former US Poet Laureate, Kooser serves as editor for "American Life in Poetry," a nationally syndicated weekly newspaper column.
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Splitting an Order
by Ted Kooser
One of the "Big Indie Books of Fall 2014"Publishers Weekly
Paterson Poetry Prize, 2015
"Ted Kooser must be the most accessible and enjoyable major poet in America. His lines are so clear and simple."Michael Dirda,The Washington Post
Readers [of Splitting an Order] will find characters’ both strange and wonderful, animal or human. There is a sense that time is passing quickly and that everything worthy must be captured and savored, from an old couple lovingly sharing a sandwich to another sowing seed potatoes to a tribute to an old dog who waits as age and winter approach
Master of the single-metaphor poem, Kooser offers images that evolve, fluid and unforced.”Library Journal, starred review
"Wisdom, compassion, and dignity continue to mark the poetry of Ted Kooser...Splitting an Order [is] a quiet collection that honors small victories and gives reasons to be hopeful."Elizabeth Lund, The Christian Science Monitor
"Kooser's ability to discover the smallest detail and render it remarkable is a rare gift."Bloomsbury Review
Pulitzer Prize winner and best selling poet Ted Kooser calls attention to the intimacies of life through commonplace objects and occurrences: an elderly couple sharing a sandwich is a study in transcendent love, while a tattered packet of spinach seeds calls forth innate human potential. This long-awaited collection from the former U.S. Poet Laureateten years in the makingis rich with quiet and profound magnificence.
From "Splitting an Order":
I like to watch an old man cutting a sandwich in half
and then to see him lift half
onto the extra plate that he asked the server to bring,
and then to wait, offering the plate to his wife
while she slowly unrolls her napkin and places her spoon,
her knife and her fork in their proper places,
then smoothes the starched white napkin over her knees
and meets his eyes and holds out both old hands to him.
Ted Kooser is the author of numerous books of poetry and prose, including Delights and Shadows (Copper Canyon Press), which won the Pulitzer Prize. A former US Poet Laureate, Kooser serves as editor for "American Life in Poetry," a nationally syndicated weekly newspaper column.
Copies
No copies available.
Kindest Regards: New and Selected
by Ted Kooser
“Kooser . . . must be the most accessible and enjoyable major poet in America. His lines are so clear and simple.” ―Michael Dirda, The Washington Post
“Nothing escapes him; everything is illuminated.” ―Library Journal
“Will one day rank alongside of Edgar Lee Masters, Robert Frost, and William Carlos Williams.” ―Minneapolis Tribune
“Kooser’s ability to discover the smallest detail and render it remarkable is a rare gift.” ―The Bloomsbury Review
Four decades of poetry―and a generous selection of new work―make up this extraordinary collection by Pulitzer Prize winner Ted Kooser. Firmly rooted in the landscapes of the Midwest, Kooser’s poetry succeeds in finding the emotional resonances within the ordinary. Kooser’s language of quiet intensity trains itself on the intricacies of human relationships, as well as the animals and objects that make up our days. As Poetry magazine said of his work, “Kooser documents the dignities, habits, and small griefs of daily life, our hunger for connection, our struggle to find balance.”
From “March 2”:
Patchy clouds and windy.
All morning
our house has been flashing in and out of shade
like a signal, and far across the waves of grass
a neighbor’s house has answered,
offering help.
Ted Kooser is the author of eleven collections of poetry, including Delights & Shadows, which won the Pulitzer Prize. He served as the Poet Laureate of the United States, and is a visiting professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
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Kindest Regards: Poems, Selected and New
by Ted Kooser
Four decades of poetry―and a generous selection of new work―make up this extraordinary collection by Pulitzer Prize winner Ted Kooser. Firmly rooted in the landscapes of the Midwest, Kooser’s poetry succeeds in finding the emotional resonances within the ordinary. Kooser’s language of quiet intensity trains itself on the intricacies of human relationships, as well as the animals and objects that make up our days. As Poetry magazine said of his work, “Kooser documents the dignities, habits, and small griefs of daily life, our hunger for connection, our struggle to find balance.”
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Raft
by Ted Kooser
Delightfully universal, Raft by Pulitzer Prize-winner Ted Kooser travels the Midwest landscape, attuned to life’s shared experiences and emotions—illness, aging, beauty, and love. Raftis our fourth collection of poetry from Pulitzer Prize-winner and former U.S. Poet Laureate, Ted Kooser. Open in his desire to write for the everyday reader, these poems maintain the open-handed and accessible style that thousands have come to love. Yet, deeply imagistic and metaphorically rich, Raft shows us that even the simplest of objects, the simplest of actions, can become a portal. A boy feeding a goldfish becomes a meditation on loneliness. Scraps of gauze open the door to a study on happiness. Both local and delightfully universal, Raft travels the Midwest landscape, attuned to the shared experiences and emotions of life—illness and aging, beauty and love. Some poems, nostalgia-wrapped, cradle elegies for lost family and friends. Adrift on life rafts of language, this book is a lesson in intentional observation, a celebration of the small, quiet wonders of life.
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$23.00
Red Stilts (paperback)
by Ted Kooser
Red Stilts finds Pulitzer Prize-winner and former U. S. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser at the top of his imaginative and storytelling powers. Here are the richly metaphorical, imagistically masterful, clear and accessible poems for which he has become widely known. Kooser writes for an audience of everyday readers and believes poets “need to write poetry that doesn’t make people feel stupid.” Each poem in Red Stilts strives to reveal the complex beauties of the ordinary, of the world that’s right under our noses. Right under Kooser’s nose is rural America, most specifically the Great Plains, with its isolated villages, struggling economy, hard-working people and multiple beauties that surpass everything wrecked, wrong, or in error.
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Braided Creek: A Conversation in Poetry: Expanded Anniversary Edition
In her loving Foreword to this expanded anniversary edition, Naomi Shihab Nye writes “Braided Creek: A Conversation in Poetry is one of the dearest, most appealing books ever published. These poems are tiny delicious American haiku affectionately exchanged between two friends… This slim volume acts as a palate-cleanser, a spirit-booster, a little rocket-ship of wonders.”
While Ted Kooser and Jim Harrison were an unlikely pair to become friends, they shared an intimate correspondence of handwritten letters that often included new poems. After Kooser was diagnosed with cancer, Harrison sensed his friend’s poetry becoming “overwhelmingly vivid,” and their friendship deepened through the exchange of brief poems that captured “the essence of what [they] wanted to say to each other.” After hundreds of poems were sent back and forth through the mail, they found this volume hidden within the stacks of envelopes and postcards.
In her loving Foreword to this expanded anniversary edition, Naomi Shihab Nye writes “Braided Creek: A Conversation in Poetry is one of the dearest, most appealing books ever published. These poems are tiny delicious American haiku affectionately exchanged between two friends… This slim volume acts as a palate-cleanser, a spirit-booster, a little rocket-ship of wonders.”
Wise, wry, and penetrating, these epigrammatic, aphoristic poems explore love and friendship, pausing to celebrate the natural world, aging, everyday things and scenes, and poetry itself. This expanded edition includes a dozen new poems, and when asked why none of the poems have attributions, one of the co-authors replied, “This book is an assertion in favor of poetry and against credentials.”
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$22.00
Valentines
by Ted Kooser
For Valentine?s Day 1986, Ted Kooser wrote ?Pocket Poem? and sent the tender, thoughtful composition to fifty women friends, starting an annual tradition that would persist for the next twenty-one years. Printed on postcards, the poems were mailed to a list of recipients that eventually grew to more than 2,500 women all over the United States. Valentines collects Kooser?s twenty-two years of Valentine?s Day poems, complemented with illustrations by Robert Hanna and a new poem appearing for the first time. ø Kooser?s valentine poems encompass all the facets of the holiday: the traditional hearts and candy, the brilliance and purity of love, the quiet beauty of friendship, and the bittersweetness of longing. Some of the poems use the word valentine, others do not, but there is never any doubt as to the purpose of Kooser?s creations.
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Writing Brave and Free: Encouraging Words for People Who Want to Start Writing
by Ted Kooser, Steve Cox
Sometimes setting pen to paper requires bravery, and writing well means breaking free of the rules learned in school. Liberating and emboldening the beginning writer are the goals of Ted Kooser and Steve Cox in this spirited book of practical wisdom that brings to bear decades of invaluable experience in writing, teaching, editing, and publishing.
Unlike “how to write” books that dwell on the angst and the agony of the trade, Writing Brave and Free is upbeat and accessible. The focus here is the work itself: how to get started and how to keep going, and never is heard a discouraging word such as “no,” “not,” or “never.” Because of the wealth of their experience, the authors can offer the sort of practical publishing advice that novices need and yet rarely find. Organized in brief, user-friendly chapters—on everything from sensory details to a work environment, from creating suspense to revising and taking criticism—the book allows aspiring (and practicing) writers to dip in anywhere and find something of value.
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The Bell in the Bridge
by Ted Kooser
Is the sound Charlie hears from the bridge an echo, or is someone else out there? A lyrical, resonant story by poet Ted Kooser, splendidly illustrated by Barry Root.
When Charlie visits his hardworking grandparents in the summer, he often is left to himself, and he is lonely. So he goes out to play by the stream, with a tin can for tadpoles, a special weed-whacking stick, and stones to drop from the iron bridge. One day he notices that when he strikes the bridge with a big stone, it rings with a bong like a church bell and echoes into the valley. And sometimes a faint, very distant, different-sounding bong comes back. Is it an echo of an echo? Or could someone else, like him, be ringing another bridge altogether? The Bell in the Bridge reverberates with the mysteries and possibilities of childhood discovery, enhanced by illustrations that echo the warmth and magic of a solo summertime adventure.
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The Wheeling Year: A Poet's Field Book
by Ted Kooser
Ted Kooser sees a writer’s workbooks as the stepping-stones on which a poet makes his way across the stream of experience toward a poem. Because those wobbly stones are only inches above the quotidian rush, what’s jotted there has an immediacy that is intimate and close to life.
Kooser, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and a former U.S. poet laureate, has filled scores of workbooks. The Wheeling Year offers a sequence of contemplative prose observations about nature, place, and time arranged according to the calendar year.
Written by one of America’s most beloved poets, this book is published in the year in which Kooser turns seventy-five, with sixty years of workbooks stretching behind him.
Purchase the audio edition.
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Seven Skies All at Once
by Ted Kooser
"Kooser's picturesque poetry vividly shapes his living sky metaphors. . . A lofty concept and radiant illustrations will leave readers on cloud nine." --Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
The skies are hanging their freshly washed--and sweepingly illustrated--clouds out to dry in Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Ted Kooser's celestial ode to an approaching rainstorm.
One sky unpins damp sheets of cirrus. Another wads cirrocumulus into a basket woven of sunbeams. Still others carry away armloads of altocumulus and drag moth-eaten gray blankets of stratus past. At last, a colossal cumulonimbus sweeps in, squeezing out the light to herald . . . rain! What emerges is a sky like a great green laundry basket with a rainbow for a handle. Full of wit and brilliant linguistic surprises, this poetic romp by former United States Poet Laureate Ted Kooser is as playfully theatrical as it is evocative. Matt Myers's dynamic artwork stages the weather with aplomb, capturing the distinct mood of each show-stopping sky and crafting a meteorological drama of epic proportions. Like a good, rousing rainstorm, Seven Skies All at Once calls eloquently on our senses, inviting us to pause and reflect on the ever-changing wonders all around.
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The Windflower Home Almanac of Poetry
by Ted Kooser
The Windflower Home Almanac of Poetry is an anthology of poems originally selected by Ted Kooser in 1980 and published by his Windflower Press, a small, independent publisher that specialized in poetry from the Great Plains. The collection contains almost two hundred poems from dozens of poets and was designed to resemble a commonplace farmer’s almanac.
The Windflower Press was the sole operation of Kooser, who was later named the first U.S. poet laureate from the Great Plains. His press gained national recognition for highlighting the work of the region’s young poets, and its Windflower Home Almanac of Poetry earned notice from the Library Journal as one of its era’s best small press books.
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