Delights & Shadows

This charming collection of Kooser's poetry is heartwarming and so visual. No matter how old you are there is something for you captured in the 84 page volume. I pick it up and randomly read...and am satisfied.

Ted Kooser is a man who delights in the details, collecting them like souvenirs and uncovering the simple truths in each one. Luminous and lovely...Kooser's poetry treads a gentle path across the fabric of everyday life, revealing hidden hopes and then retreating silently to let us ponder them. If you have a quiet evening to yourself, settle down with this book of poetry. It may be small, but you will find yourself savoring each page and turning back to favorites.

Somewhere in our critical language the word 'simple' gained negative connotations, as though the word should be hyphenated with suffixes like simpleminded, simpleton, etc. Ted Kooser has resurrected the true meaning of that word and uses it with grace and aplomb in his poetry and his prominence in the arena of American Poets (he is the Poet Laureate of the United States) proves that his creative decision has been correct. DELIGHTS & SHADOWS is a brilliant collection of his recent poems and for those unfamiliar with Kooser's writing, this small book is an excellent starting point. Kooser takes the most mundane 'simple' topics, observes them, mulls them like brewing a pot of tea and then serves them back to us in the quietest, leanest way, a manner that causes pause. And if ever a poet defined his reason in a word for writing, 'pause' would be high on the list. He can be gut wrenchingly poignant as in FATHER 'Today you would be ninety-seven/if you had lived, and we would all be/miserable, you and your children,/driving from the clinic..........I miss you every day - the heartbeat/under your necktie, the hand cupped/on the back of my neck, Old Spice/in the air, your voice delighted with stories./On this day each year you loved to relate/that at the moment of your birth/your mother glanced out the window/and saw lilacs in bloom. Well, today/lilacs are blooming in side yards/all over Iowa, still welcoming you.' No lovelier eulogy could be imagined from a son for his father. Kooser writes of Flow Blue China, cancer clinics, tattoos, starlight, grasshoppers - and so many more of the unnoticed beauties that pry into the cracks of our crowded lives. Reading Ted Kooser is a reorienting experience, one that is a powerful, quiet salve. Grady Harp, April 05

I think Kooser's latest book is his best book yet. The poems are concise and written in that plainspoken style Kooser has perfected. And Kooser speaks a poetic language we can all understand. There are five poems that really stand out in the collection. "Tattoo" deals with the fading and aging not just of a man's tatoo, but in a way, of man himself. It's a simply elegant poem. "At the Cancer Clinic" is perhaps the finest poem in the book. Very elegant. Very simple. And wonderful. "A Rainy Morning" compares the operation of a wheelchair with the playing of a piano, which is a fresh and vibrant metaphor, at least in Kooser's hands. "Memory" is atypical of Kooser. It is longer than most of his poems and is one marathon sentence that employs more poetic tricks than one is used to seeing in his poetry. But it suceeds and very well. And finally "Mother" which I think you can only appreciate by reading. Kooser's poems speak (much like his predecessor Billy Collins) to the common reader. That isn't to say that his poems aren't worth rereading. You gain much by revisiting a Kooser poem. He is one of the best writing today.

The Librarian of Congree named Kooser U.S. Poet Laureate on August 12th for a one-year term beginning in October, 2004. He is a retired life insurance executive who lives on an acreage near the village of Garland, Nebraska, northwest of Lincoln. He has published ten books of poetry and won numerous awards including two National Endowment fo the Arts fellowships in poetry, the James Boatwright Prize, the Pushcart prize, the Stanley Kunitz Prize, a Merit Award from the Nebraska Arts Council and the 2001 Nebraska Book Award for poetry. This is his latest effort and a perfect example of his talent for writing poetry that is accessible, inviting, familiar and ordinary in a most extraordinary way. There are no tricks, no intentional obscurities, no academic machinatins or clever slights of hand in his work. Instead, what you get is his observation of people, places, and events that make up our everydday life in an ordinary world all done in a way this is frest, illuminating, and ultimately Oh, so familiar. Using what poet Randall Jarrell calls "the dailiness of life," Kooser combines the past and present to remind us of, ultimately, the worthiness of existence. For example, in the poem"A Winter Morning," Our attention is called to the light in a farmhouse window viewed from the highway that we have all seen in one form or another. "A farmhouse window far back from the highway speaks to the darkness in a small, sure voice. against this stillness, only a kettle's whisper, and against the starry cold, one small blue ring of flame." His poem "Necktie" is delightful, implies familiarity that is somehow new and important, and indicative of the wonderful verses throughout the book. "His hands flutter like birds, each with a fancy silk ribbon to weave into their nest, as he stood at the mirror dressing for work, waving hello to himself with both hands." In all there are fifty-nine poems ranging from his father, mother, casting reels, garage sales, death, memory, a new cap, and a host of commong things and daily events that will remain in your memory, and heart, long after you finish the book...if you ever do. Kooser is truly a poet of the people. He gives voice to the heartland and is described by Librarian of Congress James H. Billington as "...a major poetic voice for rural and small town America..." whose "...verse reaches beyond his native region to touch on universal themes in accessible ways." A wonderful collection from a poet truly worthy of being U.S. Poet Laureate.