Ted Kooser

Source: Kent State University Libraries
flickr.com/photos/ksulib/13765081704/

Today we note the birth date of Ted Kooser (born April 25, 1939), American poet and winner of the 2005 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry. He served as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004 to 2006.

Kooser is known for his poetry and essays that celebrate and capture a vanishing way of life. Populated by farmers, family ancestors, and heirlooms, Kooser’s poems reflect his abiding interest in the past while offering clear-eyed appraisal of its hardships.

Here are two of his poems for your consideration:

Flying At Night

Above us, stars. Beneath us, constellations.
Five billion miles away, a galaxy dies
like a snowflake falling on water. Below us,
some farmer, feeling the chill of that distant death,
snaps on his yard light, drawing his sheds and barn
back into the little system of his care.
All night, the cities, like shimmering novas,
tug with bright streets at lonely lights like his.

--Ted Kooser