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Delights & Shadows
by
Ted Kooser
American author Ted Kooser is a master of metaphor, a poet who deftly connects disparate elements of the world and communicates with absolute precision. Critics call him a "haiku-like imagist" and his poems have been compared to Chekov's short stories. In Delights and Shadows, Kooser draws inspiration from the overlooked details of daily life. Quotidian objects l
...morePaperback, 96 pages
Published
May 1st 2004
by Copper Canyon Press
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For my second attempt at understanding poetry, I chose to stay home and read an author from my neck of the woods. DELIGHTS AND SHADOWS is a beautiful collection of poems that bring normal, everyday objects to life, embedding within them deeper meanings and subtle stories. Most of the poems feel almost as if my grandfather were still alive, talking to me, sharing whatever wisdom and insight he had about a particular topic, and this brings me great joy and sorrow. The words Ted Kooser—winner of...more
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Have you ever seen the film Dark City? I'm going to make a very odd analogy.
In that film, a group of awesomely misguided aliens nicknamed The Strangers steal a city's worth of human subjects and move them into their own, separate sort of universe in order to study them. Each night, The Strangers wipe the memories of these humans and exchange memories and pasts between people. A born store clerk wakes up one day and assumes the position of a blue blood millionaire. Buildings rise and ...more
In that film, a group of awesomely misguided aliens nicknamed The Strangers steal a city's worth of human subjects and move them into their own, separate sort of universe in order to study them. Each night, The Strangers wipe the memories of these humans and exchange memories and pasts between people. A born store clerk wakes up one day and assumes the position of a blue blood millionaire. Buildings rise and ...more
Modern Poetry
Modern poetry
is
simply regular sentences with
creative
line
breaks.
I find it
dull
and pretentious
and utterly
forgettable.
Modern poetry
is
simply regular sentences with
creative
line
breaks.
I find it
dull
and pretentious
and utterly
forgettable.
Given it is poetry month and Mary Jo's enthusiastic bidding, I'm trying to read some poetry ever day and Jamie loaned me this book and I love so many of the poems here. He really reminds me of my father and mother. I think I also identify because he, too, is older. He takes such simple subjects and stops you with his take. He makes the ordinary quite extraordinary and yet so simple and beautiful. For example:
NEW CAP
Brown corduroy,
the earflaps tied on top,
the same si...more
NEW CAP
Brown corduroy,
the earflaps tied on top,
the same si...more
I am now officially addicted to his stuff. Certain of his poems feel like strange artifacts come upon after long digging. I want to hold them up to the light and read out their inscriptions, then turn to my dusty neighbor to give the English translation. Here's one such one:
After Years
Today, from a distance, I saw you
walking away, and without a sound
the glittering face of a glacier
slid into the sea. An ancient oak
fell in the Cumberlands, ho...more
After Years
Today, from a distance, I saw you
walking away, and without a sound
the glittering face of a glacier
slid into the sea. An ancient oak
fell in the Cumberlands, ho...more
Ted Kooser is highly recommended among my friends and this book I borrowed to see what he was all about. Besides Neruda and whatever was assigned in High School or College, I don't consider myself well-read in poetry at all. This was a nice read. Some of the metaphors were amazing to me. Three poems stuck out as masterpieces, but the rest I didn't find as stimulating. I would have been much more impressed if they all read with the same intensity. In all, I really enjoyed this book and it gave me...more
Kooser's poetry reminds me of Billy Collins' in two respects. First of all, it isn't "difficult"; it should be pretty easy to grasp, even for those who don't read much poetry. And like Collins, Kooser is a master of finding beauty and insight in the ordinary. His outlook is more rural that Collins' (Kooser is from Nebraska), and his poetry is more somber; an awareness of our mortality is never far below the surface.
But enough comparisons; this is beautiful poetry. I'll ...more
But enough comparisons; this is beautiful poetry. I'll ...more
I think this is a sort of a lazy love on my part, that Kooser writes poems that aside from some surface sparkle don't really challenge me. And I think his persona is even a little eeky-squeaky, too mannered and interested in this fuddyduddy thing.
In spite of all that, though, I really like these poems. Of course, the middle two sections (?), about the death of his parents, is incredibly moving, but he also does some really good work with the more occasional poems of the first sectio...more
In spite of all that, though, I really like these poems. Of course, the middle two sections (?), about the death of his parents, is incredibly moving, but he also does some really good work with the more occasional poems of the first sectio...more
In this collection of poems, Ted Kooser depicts a variety of characters, with the majority of poems appearing to be poems of witness, in which the distanced narrator watches those who pass by in the world. In "A Rainy Morning," Kooser likens a woman in a wheelchair to a pianist, her hands grasping the wheels and lifting away as if striking chords on a piano.
Not particularly experimental with his style, Kooser is similar to Billy Collins in his uncanny ability to show his rea...more
Not particularly experimental with his style, Kooser is similar to Billy Collins in his uncanny ability to show his rea...more
Kooser's poetry is so quiet that it sneaks up on you with how good it is. There are no outlandish metaphors here, just ones that fit. His endings don't drive his point home with that free verse imitation of the Shakespearean couplet, just a scene or comment that connects everything. What really impresses me, though, is his use of titles. I would sometimes forget the title of the poem as I was reading it, then go back and see it, only to have the entire poem make sense at that point. That's ...more
At first, there seemed to be something missing from these poems - clear tropes, specific details, a feeling of a greater whole surrounding each of these small pieces. But the quiet genius here came flooding in soon enough, the themes of previous generations dying off and the tide of Father Time coming in for the author, the ambitions of youth giving in to the preciousness of moments and outlooks, the delicate cradling of the place one is in right now.
I lived in Iowa for my middle ...more
I lived in Iowa for my middle ...more
I really loved many of the poems in this book (Mother, A Spiral Notebook, Starlight). This book of poetry is also why I love to read books of poetry as apposed to selected works. The poems are all good, but the overall theme adds a layer of understanding to each. The book starts and ends with a poem where darkness is key. See, the way I see it this book is really about the life long. It starts in darkness and then you are "suddenly able to see". You fill 78 pages/years with wonderful p...more
There is not one wasted word within the covers of Kooser's Pulitzer Awarded volume, his epigraph included: "The Sailor cannot see the North / but knows the Needle can." This quote from a letter of E. Dickinson speaks of the power and necessity of metaphor. It is fitting because Kooser's poetry is a comprehensible art, meant to help his readers experience the world - however mundane - differently. You will never look at lilacs, or your hands as they knot your neck-tie, the same way.
...more
...more
When spring came this year it brought nostalgia, first in a book of essays about growing up in the South and here by a poet who finds illumination in the commonplace. Ted Kooser lives in and writes abut Nebraska. The rural environments and small town atmospheres he writes about raise great choirs of memories in me because he writes about the kind of world I knew as a child and young man. And I know that's one of the reasons I like his poetry so much. But he also favors a forceful metaphor an...more
This volume of Kooser’s poems won the Pulitzer Prize a couple of years ago and it is an enjoyable, accessible work of reflection on age (and therefore time and meaning). I read the first four or five poems to my girlfriend as we sat in a Rockport seafood luncheon place, fried shrimp baskets and canned beverages on red and white plastic table cloths. And the poems worked. “…At what must seem to be / a great distance, a nurse holds the door, / smiling and calling encouragement. / How patient she i...more
I had the pleasure of hearing Mr. Kooser read at the University of Kansas. Following his talk I checked out this book. Although it's not my favorite collection, his poems on fish hooks and tattoos still stand out in my mind. Kooser is a Midwesterner like myself and there is something quintessentially, reassuringly Midwestern about his work. I don't think I'd call it reticence precisely...maybe staid? I believe I would take this book with me if I left Kansas; he sounds like "my people."...more
Kooser's powers of observation are amazing, as is his ability to concisely convey wonder, emotion, amusement, and affection for the small details of the world around him -- that happen to touch on universal shared experience and feeling. These are luminous poems, deceptively simple but intensely well-crafted, without a wrong note or an extra word. No wonder he won the Pulitzer Prize for this. A must-read, and thoroughly accessible while still being deep and thought-provoking.
2009-09-23 -- Going to see if I can read this before I see Ted Kooser on Friday at the library.
2009-09-24 -- Great stuff. I'll be happy to meet him. And the poem "Casting Reels" needs to be hanging in my house. Oh, it's worth the copyright impropriety...
Casting Reels
You find them at flea markets
and yard sales,
old South Bends and Pfluegers,
with fancy engraving,
knurled knobs and pearl handles,
spooled with the fray...more
2009-09-24 -- Great stuff. I'll be happy to meet him. And the poem "Casting Reels" needs to be hanging in my house. Oh, it's worth the copyright impropriety...
Casting Reels
You find them at flea markets
and yard sales,
old South Bends and Pfluegers,
with fancy engraving,
knurled knobs and pearl handles,
spooled with the fray...more
On another night, the simplicity of Kooser's language, the deep sympathy he feels for seemingly unremarkable people, and the quiet way he slips into a moment and finds in it some spark might stick, but tonight it luffs off like so much dust slapped out of jeans.
But this one I love.
But this one I love.
This was just fantastic. I read a lot of poetry and I rate my favorites. Kooser is 1A and Billy Collins is 1B. Kooser poems are like word snapshots that capture a moment of life and remind you of the intensity, depth, and value of beling alive. This is a must read book for poets and even people who think they hate poetry will like this book.
I borrowed this book from the library but I think I need my own copy. It's packed full of gems. Ted Kooser is an excellent companion and an inspiring model for paying close, steady, open-hearted attention to what's around us and how it echoes what's in us.
Wow! Mr. Kooser writes about ordinary things in not so ordinary ways. I especially enjoy the way he honors his past when he writes about his parents or his grandmother. His metaphors will take your breath away sometimes!
This a truly magnificent work of poems. I have heard some of Kooser's poems on the radio, but holding the book and reading them aloud takes you to Indiana or Nebraska or somewhere in the midwest. Ted Kooser is a gem.
This collection of Ted Kooser's poems was very... plain. There was nothing "attention grabbing" about them. But the things he wrote about and how he said them, there was a hidden beauty in all of them.
A bowl of candycorn
left over from Halloween,
each free-verse kernal
melting to a melocreme metaphor.
Whatever the bright color,
the taste is comforting,
balanced, evocative,
and exactly the same.
left over from Halloween,
each free-verse kernal
melting to a melocreme metaphor.
Whatever the bright color,
the taste is comforting,
balanced, evocative,
and exactly the same.
I love these simple straight-forward poems often set in the midwest. The title says so much--simple delights and some dark shadows but life is good and we are all interconnected. Enjoy!
If you shy away from poetry, try this one. Kooser writes about small everyday objects, people, or events that all of us are familiar with. I want to ready more of his poetry.
I saw Ted Kooser speak a few years ago, and I'm a fan. I really liked this collection of poems, especially the ones about his mother. They're heartbreaking and beautiful.
This was one of the 2005 RUSA Notable Books winners. For the complete list, go to http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/rusa/a...
This need to attain clarity, to capture the moment with eloquent grace, is present in every poem, and feels forced sometimes. The best ones in this collection almost stand still, though I don't like stillness for long periods of time, and this book stretches it until the end.
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Ted Kooser lives in rural Nebraska with his wife, Kathleen, and three dogs. He is one of America's most noted poets, having served two terms as U. S. Poet Laureate and, during the second term, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his collection, DELIGHTS & SHADOWS. He is a retired life insurance executive who now teaches part-time at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln. The school board in L...more
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