Local Wonders: Seasons in the Bohemian Alps

Poet (and now Poet Laureate) Ted Kooser wrote this collection of prose pieces while in his early sixties, all of them appreciations of his daily life and memories of family going back to his boyhood in Ames, Iowa. Living today in a farmhouse near little Gardner, Nebraska, not far from Lincoln, he first describes the rolling terrain of the land and its Czech and Bohemian settlers, whose descendants continue to provide a cultural identity to the region. The essays are sprinkled with Czech and Bohemian proverbs, reflecting the wry common-sense wisdom of the Old World that informs his point of view. Not all of them essays, some are short prose poems, spun out usually in one or two long sentences that reach a breathless climax that is, well, breathtaking. Reading his work, you are struck by his sincerity and the intensity of his awareness. While a man of strong opinions, they are rarely expressed directly and only seldom ironically, as when he describes the willful spraying of herbicides in road ditches by two county workers who have no sense of the risks to their health and the environment. Identified on the book jacket as a retired insurance executive, Kooser embodies a kind of risk aversion that celebrates what is steady, dependable, and unthreatening in his world. There are rarely shadows, and when they do appear it is with a surprise that is shocking, as when a woman tells of an elderly aunt whose family was murdered by a farm hand when she was a teenager. Even his bout with cancer is told with a kind of emotional reserve and matter-of-factness that belies the anxiety he experienced over a six-month period of recovery. Kooser is clearly abreast of the modern world, but everywhere in his writing, there's a lightness of touch - a gentleness - that harks back to a quieter time in our social history. His touching memories of his father are a tender evocation of post-war America that would easily stand beside illustrations by Normal Rockwell. E. B. White's wonderful essays on rural living in "One Man's Meat" also come to mind. Like White's, his vision is informed by humor, but rarely at the expense of other people (unless you take exception to his characterization of Republicans as "smug"). Even pheasant and coyote hunters with their arsenals and SUVs are seen as earnest and only incidentally comical. Thanks to the University of Nebraska Press for bringing this fine book to print. Each page is a pleasure.

I am not the sort of person who revisits books. I tend to move on to things that are new since there is so much out there calling to be read. But with Koozer's "Local Wonders" I have had to make an exception. I have read certain sections of it 3 times already and find them as compelling each time. This collection of four seasonal essays contains so many examples of wonderful writing that I am amazed that this book has not received more attention than it has. I was raised in New England, but I " know" many of the people and situations that Koozer is so eloquently writing about. This is a book to be read and your leisure because it is very much like spending time with an old and wise friend. I cannot recommend it enough.

You feel like that. Like a Nebraskan. Ted Kooser puts you there. Like stepping out of the stark house in Edward Hopper's, "High Noon" with great acres waiting outside and wind whistling. Or eyeing a line of thunderstorms sweeping across fields of wheat like in John Rogers Cox's "Grey and Gold". His apt metaphors and great imagery paint clear pictures. He chooses words for his prose with poetic care. He frames these anecdotes like an artist, easily shifting from the simple to the sublime, from way back when to this morning on a walk. He focuses on the importance of small things. His stories exude a great warmth of spirit and bear repeated reading. I wish he was an uncle of mine. I'd follow his directions and visit, like a neighbor.

As a native of Seward County (Seward High School, 1984) Mr. Kooser has provided me with a wonderful trip down memory lane. But even if I was not, I would still have enjoyed the book immensely. Mr. Kooser weaves together some of the everyday tasks of living in rural Nebraska into a basket full of life. The book is a wonderful escape from the life I now live (city life, frustrating job), back to the life I remember and plan to return to. It is very easy to read, with the individual stories flying past as I turned the pages. I must admit I was disappointed when I finished it - only because I didn't want to leave the place where Mr. Kooser had invited me. I wish it had been 10 times as long. A wonderful book !

When so much of best-selling nonfiction today is so sensationalistic, Ted Kooser's memoir is refreshingly down-to-earth. It is moving, nostalgic, and as beautifully written as his poetry. Although it is entirely set in Nebraska and Iowa, it is a book I would recommend for readers from anywhere in the country.