A Study Guide for Ted Kooser's "Delights and Shadows"


Book Description

A Study Guide for Ted Kooser's "Delights and Shadows," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Literary Newsmakers for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Literary Newsmakers for Students for all of your research needs.




Delights & Shadows


Book Description

"Kooser has written more perfect poems than any poet of his generation." -Dana Gioia, Can Poetry Matter?




A Study Guide for Ted Kooser's "At the Cancer Clinic"


Book Description

A Study Guide for Ted Kooser's "At the Cancer Clinic," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Poetry for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Poetry for Students for all of your research needs.




The Poetry Home Repair Manual


Book Description

Recently appointed as the new U. S. Poet Laureate, 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.




House Held Up by Trees


Book Description

Built on a treeless yard by a family who cleared away all the sprouting trees on the property, a house is eventually abandoned and left to deteriorate on a lot that is gradually overrun by wild trees, in a poignant tale of loss, change and nature's quiet triumph by the Pulitzer Prize-winning former U.S. Poet Laureate and author of Delights & Shadows.




American Tensions


Book Description

This anthology of contemporary American poetry, short fiction, and nonfiction, explores issues of identity, oppression, injustice, and social change. Living American writers produced each piece between 1980 and the present; works were selected based on literary merit and the manner in which they address one or more pressing social issues. William Reichard has assembled some of the most respected literary artists of our time, asking whose voices are ascendant, whose silenced, and why. The work as a whole reveals shifting perspectives and the changing role of writing in the social justice arena over the last few decades.




The Wheeling Year


Book Description

Ted Kooser sees a writerOCOs 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, whatOCOs jotted there has an immediacy that is intimate and close to life. Kooser, winner of the Pultizer 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 AmericaOCOs most beloved poets, this book is published in the year in which Kooser turns seventy-five, with sixty years of workbooks stretching behind him. a"




Kindest Regards


Book Description

“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.




Splitting an Order


Book Description

One of the "Big Indie Books of Fall 2014"—Publishers Weekly "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 Laureate—ten years in the making—is 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.




Writing Brave and Free


Book Description

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.