- University of Nebraska–Lincoln Photography ©2004
U.S. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser read 17 new poems, many of them straightforward yet elegant observations of ordinary things, from an intense rollerblader to a 50-year-old chair, when he opened the Library's 2005-2006 literary season on Oct. 13.
Kooser, who is serving his second term as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library, wrote all 17 poems within the past year, rising at 4:30 nearly every day at his Nebraska country home.
"I really apologize for these poems being so fresh. A poet with any sense would let them age for a year, and eventually learn which ones worked. But I did want to read some things tonight that I had done while I was the laureate," he said.
The audience didn't mind. The capacity crowd in the Mumford Room was delighted with Kooser's poetry, which inevitably makes everyday things seem special. For instance, he examined the mundane practice of making lists. "I got to thinking one day about lists, how many of us make lists and what purpose they serve in the world."
"The List"
This is the little sail that pulls us over the cold,
hazardous waves of the day.
But then is neglected, stuffed into the hold of a pocket and promptly
forgotten
Or kicked overboard into the wake.
Yet we owe the list so much.
It's where history started. Notches cut in a stick.
A wheel of stone carved with a catalog and left in
the sand.
Every day there are more.
Blowing up into fences, somersaulting down ditches next to the freeway
Fat wads of checked off words and numbers,
The true seeds of civilized life.
He also read a poem called "Success": "I can feel the thick yellow fat of applause building up in my arteries, friends. Yet I go on, a fool for adoration." He read about his wife taking Spanish lessons, pine trees dying of blight, a windy day, early winter and a mouse in a trap. He described a rollerblader he had seen this past summer while walking along a lakefront path in Duluth, Minn.
"The Rollerblader"
I saw her coming from a long way off.
That singular side-to-side whispering movement
As she swung her arms and legs,
Brushing the morning aside, the morning's inertia
And the dew, which throughout the cool night had settled on the path
like starlight.
An old man and woman, too, with their little dog were swept off into
the grass,
Lifting her knees
And they glanced at her hot red face as she passed,
As if they had known her once, or all that fury.
Kooser closed the reading with three Valentine's Day poems. About 20 years ago, he started sending out a poem on Valentine's Day to the women in his life, mostly wives of friends. Today, the list has grown to 1,600 females. He told the women in the audience that he would be happy to add their names and addresses to his mailing list and they, too, would receive a postcard with his poem on Valentine's Day. After the reading, many slipped him pieces of paper with their information.
The Valentine's Day poems he writes are not traditional. Maybe they include the word "heart," for instance, if he is talking about the hearts of celery or an artichoke heart. The three he read were "Song of the Ironing Board," "Barn Owl" (which has a heart-shaped face), and "Oh, Mariachi Me."
Kooser also mentioned his "American Life in Poetry" project (www.americanlifeinpoetry.org), which is a weekly column that he offers to newspapers and other publications over the Web. The column features a short poem written by other poets. Every Thursday, Kooser chooses a new poem and supplies a brief introduction. The project is Kooser's effort to help increase the country's appreciation of poetry. Launched in April 2004, the column is now featured in 134 newspapers, reaching a potential audience of 9.6 million readers.
The project will continue, even after Kooser finishes his laureateship. "I will keep it going until I drop. I tend to have a lot of fun with it, and I hope to have 20 million potential readers in another year," he said.
Kooser also recapped his first year as poet laureate: "It has been like a blur to me in many ways. I conducted 71 interviews and 107 personal appearances or readings." Describing his style, he said, "I stand for the kind of poetry that the everyday person can appreciate."
Kooser, a retired life insurance executive, thanked the Librarian for selecting him as poet laureate in 2004 and again in 2005: "In many ways it was a courageous thing to do, to choose a guy like me from the middle of nowhere, when many of the poets laureate had been from the coasts. He probably knew that I would dive into this headlong, like a dutiful Midwestern guy.
"And as a result, I took it upon myself to prove that someone from a little place in Nebraska — the nearest town to my home has 240 people — could do a really good job of this. And I've pretty much worked it seven days a week ever since, and I intend to keep that up."
