Delights and 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 like a pegboard, creamed corn and a forgotten salesman's trophy help reveal the remarkable in what before was a merely ordinary world.

"Kooser documents the dignities, habits and small griefs of daily life, our hunger for connection, our struggle to find balance."-Poetry

Ted Kooser is the author of eight collections of poems and a prose memoir. He lives on a small farm in rural Nebraska.

Genres: Poetry, Nonfiction, Contemporary, Classics, Adult, Literature, American

87 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2004

About the author

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 Lincoln, Nebraska, recently opened Ted Kooser Elementary School, which Ted says is his greatest honor, among many awards and distinctions. He has published twelve collections of poetry and three nonfiction books. Two of the latter are books on writing, The Poetry Home Repair Manual and Writing Brave and Free, and a memoir, Lights on a Ground of Darkness (all from University of Nebraska Press. Bag in the Wind from Candlewick is his first children's book, with which he is delighted. "It's wonderful," Ted said, "to be writing for young people. I am reinventing myself at age 70."

Reviews

[s.penkevich [hiatus-will return-miss you all] · Rating 5 out of 5]

‘Were it not for the way you taught me to look
at the world, to see the life at play in everything,
I would have been lonely forever.

This quote, the final few lines from the American Poet Laureate Ted Kooser’s emotionally charged poem Mother, works equally well as a depiction of how Kooser himself shows the reader ‘life at play’. In this Pulitzer Prize winning collection of poems, Delights & Shadows, we watch life come alive on a grand scale in small observations, and hear the language of the land and the people who dwell upon it flow forth from each page. Each poem enters the reader then seeks that place deep within them where their joys, loves, fears and sadness reside - a place some call the soul, and wraps it up in a soothing and loving poetic embrace.

A HAPPY BIRTHDAY

This evening, I sat by an open window
and read till the light was gone and the book
was no more than a part of the darkness.
I could easily have switched on a lamp,
but I wanted to ride this day down into night,
to sit alone and smooth the unreadable page
with the pale gray ghost of my hand.

The title of this collection is an excellent choice for the poem found within. We have ‘delights’ and ‘shadows’, both bound together as something inseparable instead of being two differing ideas. Through Kooser, we see how life is illuminated by death, and vise versa, both achieving poignancy through the presence and awareness of the other.

SURVIVING

There are days when the fear of death
is as ubiquitous as light. It illuminates
everything. Without it, I might not
have noticed this ladybird beetle,
bright as a drop of blood
on the window’s white sill.
Her head no bigger than a period,
her eyes like needle points,
she has stopped for a moment to rest,
knees locked, wing covers hiding
the delicate lace of her wings.
As the fear of death, so attentive
to everything living, comes near her,
the tiny antennae stop moving.

He lovingly reminds us to take joy in everything around us, to treasure it, because life is fleeting and suddenly we discover beauty in the tiniest of objects simply because we remember both the objects and ourselves are merely temporary. This ever present cloud of death does not hang heavy on the poems or in our hearts through Kooser, as he views it as just another state that we all go through and never once does foreboding taint his imagery. Even in the poem Mourning, focusing on a funeral, we see people who ‘came this afternoon to say goodbye,/but now they keep saying hello and hello,’ showing how deaths message of our own mortality offers a more weightier, positive message to cherish those still with us than to fear the end. Even in the poem Father, reflecting on his fathers death twenty years prior to the writing of the poem, the focus is on how death was kind to allow his father to pass with his ‘dignity intact’ instead of having to suffer endless trips to hospitals as ‘an ancient, fearful hypochondriac’ caught In a downward spiral that would have made everyone miserable. The poem is so uplifting, speaking of lilacs blooming as they did on the day of his birth to still welcome him, placing such a peaceful tone to smother the darkness of death. We all must endure it, and we might as well accept it.

THE OLD PEOPLE

Pantcuffs rolled, and in old shoes,
they stumble over the rocks and wade out
into a cold river of shadows
far from the fire, so far that its warth
no longer reaches them. And its light
(but for the sparks in their eyes
when they chance to look back)
scarcely brushes their faces. Their ears
are full of night: rustle of black leaves
against a starless sky. Sometimes
they hear us calling, and sometimes
they don’. They are not searching
for anything much, nor are they much
in need of finding something new.
They are feeling their way out into the night,
Letting their eyes adjust to the future.

Kooser chronicles all change as a transformation that blends two states from one to the other. Through this collection he always selects phrases ‘slowly tipping forward into spring’ or ‘lean into wave after wave of responsibility to reflect how one state flows into the other, making them somehow inseparable as opposed to there being a clear dividing line. Often we never realize our transformations in life until after they have already occurred unbeknownst to us, such as in The Skater when the woman is ‘smiling back at the woman she’d been just an instant before’. These transformations come alive in Kooser’s words.

TATTOO

What once was meant to be a statement—
a dripping dagger held in the fist
of a shuddering heart—is now just a bruise
on a bony old shoulder, the spot
where vanity once punched him hard
and the ache lingered on. He looks like
someone you had to reckon with,
strong as a stallion, fast and ornery,
but on this chilly morning, as he walks
between the tables at a yard sale
with the sleeves of his tight black T-shirt
rolled up to show us who he was,
he is only another old man, picking up
broken tools and putting them back,
his heart gone soft and blue with stories.

Another wonderful aspect of this collection is the way the American landscape comes alive through his prose. Even a quick shuffling through the pages engulfs the reader in a vivid transportation from their reading chair to the American farms, fields, creeks, cities and deep into the heartland as the sights, sounds, smells and language of these areas rise from the page.

MEMORY
(You can hear Kooser read this poem himself here)

Spinning up dust and cornshucks
as it crossed the chalky, exhausted fields,
it sucked up into its heart
hot work, cold work, lunch buckets,
good horses, bad horses, their names
and the names of mules that were
better or worse than the horses,
then rattled the dented tin sides
of the threshing machine, shook
the manure spreader, cranked
the tractor’s crank that broke
the uncle’s arm, then swept on
through the windbreak, taking
the treehouse and dirty magazines,
turning its fury on the barn
where cows kicked over buckets
and the gray cat sat for a squirt
of thick milk in its whiskers, crossed
the chicken pen, undid the hook,
plucked a warm brown egg
from the meanest hen, then turned
toward the house, where threshers
were having dinner, peeled back
the roof and the kitchen ceiling,
reached down and snatched up
uncles and cousins, grandma, grandpa,
parents and children one by one,
held them like dolls, looked
long and longingly into their faces,
then set them back in their chairs
with blue and white platters of chicken
and ham and mashed potatoes
still steaming before them, with
boats of gravy and bowls of peas
and three kinds of pie, and suddenly,
with a sound like a sigh, drew up
its crowded, roaring, dusty funnel,
and there at its tip was the nib of a pen.

The American heartland sings loud and clear through each word, bringing all these images and emotions alive and collecting them at the tip of a pen to comment on the power of poetry to be able to harness and contain all the powers of the world into carefully selected, beautiful words. This poem is one of the finest arguments for the power of poetry that I know of, all managed through those final two lines. Simply stunning.

This is a marvelous collection of poetry and I fell in love with each and every word. Ted Kooser has a magical ability to bring his words, and the world, alive through these short poems. What impressed and satisfied me most was the sheer joy that shines forth from each phrase and page and the general uplifting attitude that echoes out of each poem, especially those dealing with death. Every minute detail of existence is told to stand up and dance their hearts out, coming alive in such a joyful, seemingly effortless manner. In his series of poems about four Civil War paintings by Winslow Homer, the image of the sharpshooter in the tree has a great bit comparing his finger waiting to pull the trigger being like ‘the chord behind the tight fence of a musical staff, the sonnet shut in a book’. Kooser makes the everyday a cause for celebration. This is an absolutely delightful collection.
5/5

Look at how awesome and happy Kooser is.

He just wants to relax and let perfect prose dance from his mouth. You can watch and listen to him read another poem from this collection here.
Also, he wrote a children’s picture book, Bag in the Wind, focusing on the importance of recycling. What a cool guy. He just wants the world to smile.

HOME MEDICAL JOURNAL

This is not so much a dictionary
as it is an atlas for the old,
in which they pore over
the pink and gray maps of the body,
hoping to find that wayside junction
where a pain-rutted road
intersects with the highway
of answers, and where the slow river
of fear that achingly meanders
from organ to organ
is finally channeled and dammed.

[TK421 · Rating 5 out of 5]

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 the Pulitzer Prize for DELIGHTS AND SHADOWS—uses resonate long after reading one of his poems. It is almost as if Kooser challenges us to reflect upon the ordinary, daring us to see beyond.

The Georgia Review calls Kooser “an authentic poet of the American people” and I am happy to agree. In all of us, no matter if you live on the East Coast or West Coast, in Texas, or Alaska, and everywhere in between, stories of our ancestors murmur frequently through unsuspecting items such as a jar of buttons or a gyroscope or a telescope or a beaded purse. It is this type of magic that Kooser uses to associate death with a pearl beaded purse, or lilacs blooming to remember his father. Oh, perhaps this is sentimentality at its finest and I have been duped into reading poetry that some find elementary or arbitrary as some of the reviewers have called his poems “easy” and “lacking depth,” but I think that is missing the point. Like Billy Collins, Ted Kooser uses straightforward metaphors and allusions to get his point across. Leaving you scratching your head in wonder is never his objective. He wants to move you and make you think. He wants you to be able to relate to his words and images. Yes, there is a level of clarity and accessibility that may strike some as the poet being lazy, but this is intentional. As the back of the book suggests, “each [poem] revels the remarkable within an otherwise ordinary world.”

I couldn’t agree more.

Here are three of my favorites:

STUDENT

The green shell of his backpack makes him lean
into the wave after wave of responsibility,
And he swings his stiff arms and cupped hands,

padding ahead. He has extended his neck
to its full length, and his chin, hard as a beak,
breaks the cold surf. He’s got his baseball cap on

backwards as up he crawls, out of the froth
of a hangover and onto the sand of the future,
and lumbers, heavy with hope, into the library.


BIKER

Pulling away from a stoplight
with a tire’s sharp bark,
he lifts his scuffed boot and kicks at the air,
and the old dog of inertia gets up with a growl
and shrinks out of the way.

(THIS ONE MAY NOT SEEM VERY SPECIAL TO SOME, BUT I LIVE IN STURGIS, SOUTH DAKOTA, HOME TO THE STURGIS RALLY)

A JAR OF BUTTONS

This is a core sample
from the floor of the Sea of Mending,

a cylinder packed with shells
that over many years

sank through fathoms of shirts—
pearl buttons, blue buttons—

and settled together
beneath waves of perseverance,

an ocean upon which
generations of women set forth,

under the sails of gingham curtains,
and, seated side by side

on decks sometimes salted with tears,
made small but important repairs.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Again, maybe I have no idea what I’m talking about, but I know how I felt after reading these poems.

VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

[Lawyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Delights and Shadows: Ted Kooser's Unerring Observations of Life

“I wonder how many people I've looked at all my life and never seen.”― John Steinbeck, The Winter of Our Discontent

Delights & Shadows, Ted Kooser, Copper Canyon Press, Port Townsend, Washington, 2004

The appearance of this review marks something very new for me. That happens to be an acknowledgement that I have and do read poetry, though none of you who believe they know me would have ever thought it and those who do not know me should ever care one whit.

I believe that as a species we are frequently filled with pride. Because of that pride, one of our greatest fears, and I will claim that fear as my own, is that we are terribly concerned that we might reveal our ignorance at any given time.

Take poetry, for instance. It can be an obtuse thing at times. I have gone through life never having had an idea of what a poet meant in a work I found impenetrable. For me I believe it began with the great English poets. If we will admit it, the English have a far longer literary history than Americans do. Consequently the English, I've always believed, are capable of explicating their poetry without a glance through The Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250-1918

I first became impatient with Poetry in high school. That classic English poetry was filled with literary allusion that some of my teachers could not or would not for belief that poetry exists as a matter of magical form, caused my eyes to glaze over, the words beginning to blur into one another in a manner I would never be able to untangle.

Should you be among that group, as I have, who have avoided poetry out of sheer terror, let me advise you to take a deep breath, sigh if you must, and give poetry a chance. With sincere apologies to John Lennon, all I'm asking is give poetry a chance. You might find yourself surprised. Perhaps you might even find yourself being amazed. Damn. There's that Beatles hook again.

If I were able to persuade ONE reader to pick up and read One book of poetry, it would be Delights and Shadows by Ted Kooser. I've returned to it four times and found a beauty of life, a delight in life, and the indomitable nature of people, many of whom we not only wonder if we've passed them without seeing them, or if honest, actually ignored them as we passed by on our own business more important to ourselves.

Ted Kooser has served as America's Poet Laureate for two hitches. This small volume of poetry was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 2005.


Ted Kooser, born April, 25, 1939, Ames, Iowa

That's the face of a man you want to know. Once you've read him, you know he's the man you'd like to share a cup of coffee with, or a cold morning walk.

Critics, whom I will not detail here, almost uniformly describe Kooser as a master of metaphor. He also captures details of life in images so precise it is enough to make anyone instantly aware that most of us do not have that remarkable ability.

As metaphor, this entire little book brims with it. Some of it is not easily accepted. At its most basic premise, for this reader, we are all born with one foot in the grave. None of us is ever going to make it out of this alive. However, Kooser finds the delights among the very valley of the shadow of death into which we all descend, illustrating the dignity and courage of the human spirit.

Following are a few examples.

At the Cancer Clinic

She is being helped toward the open door
that leads to the examining rooms
by two young women I take to be her sisters.
Each bends to the weight of an arm
and steps with the straight, tough bearing
of courage. At what must seem to be
a great distance, a nurse holds the door,
smiling and calling encouragement.
How patient she is in the crisp white sails
of her clothes. The sick woman
peers from under her funny knit cap
to watch each foot swing scuffing forward
and take its turn under her weight.
There is no restlessness or impatience
or anger anywhere in sight. Grace
fills the clean mold of this moment
and all the shuffling magazines grow still.


In the Waiting Room

Consider that courage in the face of adversity.

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 fraying line
of long stories snarled into silence,
not just exaggerated tales of walleyes, bass, and catfish,
but of hardworking men who on Saturdays sought out
the solace of lakes, who on weekdays at desks,
or standing on ladders,
or next to clattering machines
played out their youth and strength
waiting to set the hook, and then,
in their sixties, felt the line go slack
and reeled the years back empty.
They are the ones that got away...


Vintage Casting Reels

Consider this reward for the lives of toil we live.

And, finally, though there is so much more to be found, pearl after pearl, jewel after jewel...

Memory

by Ted Kooser

Spinning up dust and cornshucks
as it crossed the chalky, exhausted fields,
it sucked up into its heart
hot work, cold work, lunch buckets,
good horses, bad horses, their names
and the names of mules that were
better or worse than the horses,
then rattled the dented tin sides
of the threshing machine, shook
the manure spreader, cranked
the tractor’s crank that broke
the uncle’s arm, then swept on
through the windbreak, taking
the treehouse and dirty magazines,
turning its fury on the barn
where cows kicked over buckets
and the gray cat sat for a squirt
of thick milk in its whiskers, crossed
the chicken pen, undid the hook,
plucked a warm brown egg
from the meanest hen, then turned
toward the house, where threshers
were having dinner, peeled back
the roof and the kitchen ceiling,
reached down and snatched up
uncles and cousins, grandma, grandpa,
parents and children one by one,
held them like dolls, looked
long and longingly into their faces,
then set them back in their chairs
with blue and white platters of chicken
and ham and mashed potatoes
still steaming before them, with
boats of gravy and bowls of peas
and three kinds of pie, and suddenly,
with a sound like a sigh, drew up
its crowded, roaring, dusty funnel,
and there at its tip was the nib of a pen.


The nib of a pen

Consider how we could hold onto all those we have loved, and lost, those who have entered the valley of the shadow without the blessing of memory.

For some critics and some readers, the word accessible when attached to the name of a poet and the poet's work is a nasty word. It is anathema. If one must scratch one's head and not be befuddled upon finishing a poem, why, you're just not reading good poetry. So I've been told. For the elite, they have permission to leave the room and construct conundrums for however long they may live. I pity them the delights they will miss along the way.

So I wish for each of you who may come upon this review, perhaps this essay, the desire for poetry. There are miles and miles to go before you sleep.

This review is for a relatively new goodreads friend, Harper Curtis who "reads all kinds of books, especially poetry." My friend, you caused me to put up a poetry shelf in my goodreads library and are responsible for the review. I can hear you saying, "Gawd, I hope he got it right." To the music of language.

[Peycho Kanev · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Pegboard"

It has been carefully painted
with the outlines of tools
to show us which belongs where,
auger and drawknife,
claw hammer and crosscut saw,
like the outlines of hands on the walls
of ancient caves in France,
painted with soot mixed with spit
ten thousand years ago
in the faltering firelight of time,
hands borrowed to work on the world
and never returned.

[Ken]

Like rime, Kooser's a little like Frost and a little unlike him. He is a poet of the prosaic, lifting the ordinary to extraordinary heights before our very eyes. A bucket of dishwater, his grandmother's radio, a spider on a gravestone, a jar of buttons. Delights in the minutiae of the Midwest, yes, but they resonate and know no borders. Even two-liners are a wonder:

Starlight

All night, this soft rain from the distant past.
No wonder I sometimes waken as a child.

A master of metaphor, he sees one ordinary object inside another, presents it the way you'd pop the head off a matroshka doll, elicits an "Of course!" from his readers. He is a writer of wooden rooms with slants of sun ray, lilies by the well-used steps, weed-weary cemeteries, kitchens filled with "the warm wet breath of apples" during applesauce-making time.

Life, then.

If you feel the black dogs of depression creeping up, read Kooser. It's the little things -- and I don't mean pills -- that must buoy us, make us smile and say, "Yes, that's it. Right there. Taken for granted, yet a wonder...."

[Bjorn Sorensen · Rating 5 out of 5]

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 and high school years - Kooser brought an exact, deep and compassionate feeling of the Midwest, the darker, open air, the family stories told through a vivid changing of seasons, the farm buildings in stark contrast to huge horizons. There are seemingly simple, grounded pieces mixed with classic, unforgettable poems like "Mother", "Four Civil War Paintings by Winslow Homer", "The Spiral Notebook" and what I thought was the most accomplished piece, "Grasshoppers":


This year they are exactly the size
of the pencil stub my grandfather kept
to mark off the days since rain,

and precisely the color of dust, of the roads
leading back across the dying fields
into the '30s. Walking the cracked lane

past the empty barn, the empty silo,
you hear them tinkering with irony,
slapping the grass like drops of rain.


To me this poem manages to do so many things and travel to many places in its three short stanzas. The line breaks are effective but don't think too much of themselves, the poem effortlessly goes from the present to the past and back again, and the poem seems to be obvious in its use of the word "irony" in the second to last line - to me the greater irony is thinking we can ever get back the past, that we can expect things to ever be a good (or simple) as they were before. This is a mournful poem as the difficulties of the 30s affected so many people and certainly lead up to today, where grasshoppers are everywhere and many family farms are gone.

Our lives are so fast-paced that many important things are missed. I appreciate the gentleness Kooser uses to insist that we read his poems.

[Dale Harcombe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it. From start to finish I adored this collection of poems. It is easy to understand how this poet won the Pulitzer for poetry. When it comes to favourite poems, I’d be hard pressed to choose because there wasn’t one that didn’t appeal. The imagery and pitch of each poem is perfect.

Here are just a couple of lines from a few poems. From ‘Old Lilacs’ this description of horses.
‘Their long legs are dusty
from standing for months
in winter’s stall, and their eyes
are like a cloudy sky
seen though bare branches’

From ‘That was I’
‘I was that older man you saw sitting
In a confetti of yellow light and falling leaves’

‘A washing of Hands’
‘She turned on the tap and a silver braid
Unravelled over her fingers.’

I could go on and on but that gives you some idea of the delights of this collection. If I had to pick special favourites they would include
‘A Glimpse of the Eternal’ (this short poem reminded me of the work of Andrew Lansdown – one of our best, if not the best Australian poet, in my opinion)
I responded to the heartbreak of ‘The Beaded Purse,’ the poignancy of ‘Mother,’ ‘Tattoo,’ and the acute observation of ‘A Rainy Morning.’ Others that impacted me included ‘Praying Hands’, ‘Grasshoppers,’ ‘The Early Bird’, ‘A Box of Pastels’, ‘Depression Glass’. I could go on. Soon you would have the whole lot as there is not one poem that I didn’t love. This is a collection I will read and re-read. So pleased I bought this book and feel privileged to own it. This is a joy to read.

[Cheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read his poems, and can't quite figure out how he does it, choosing the exact right words and placing them in the right order, to create such quiet beauty. Not all of his poems move me emotionally, but they all are just quietly and calmly gorgeous and restful and peaceful, zen-like and meditative.

Telescope
This is the pipe that pierces the dam
that holds back the universe,

that takes off some of the pressure,
keeping the weight of the unknown

from breaking through
and washing us all down the valley.

Because of this small tube,
through which a cold light rushes

from the bottom of time,
the depth of the stars stays always constant

and we are able to sleep, at least for now,
beneath the straining wall of darkness.

Home Medical Dictionary

This is not so much a dictionary
as it is an atlas for the old,
in which they pore over
the pink and gray maps of the body,
hoping to find that wayside junction
where a pain-rutted road
intersects with the highway
of answers, and where the slow river
of fear that achingly meanders
form organ to organ
is finally channeled and dammed.

Mother (fragment)
...You asked me if I would be sad when it happened

and I am sad. But the iris I moved from your house
now hold in the dusty dry fists of their roots
green knives and forks as if waiting for dinner,
as if spring were a feast. I thank you for that.
Were it not for the way you taught me to look
at the world, to see the life at play in everything,
I would have to be lonely forever.

At the Cancer Clinic

She is being helped toward the open door
that leads to the examining rooms
by two young women I take to be her sisters.
Each bends to the weight of an arm
and steps with the straight, tough bearing
of courage. At what must seem to be
a great distance, a nurse holds the door,
smiling and calling encouragement.
How patient she is in the crisp white sails
of her clothes. The sick woman
peers from under her funny knit cap
to watch each foot swing scuffing forward
and take its turn under her weight.
There is no restless or impatience
or anger anywhere in sight. Grace
fills the clean mold of this moment
and all the shuffling magazines grow still.

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, holding only
a handful of leaves, and an old woman
scattering corn to her chickens looked up
for an instant. At the other side
of the galaxy, a star thirty-five times
the size of our own sun exploded
and vanished, leaving a small green spot
on the astronomer's retinar
as he stood in the great open dome
of my heart with no one to tell.

[Kimberly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I could easily have read through this anthology in one sitting. But that doesn't mean that this collection lacked depth. It was rather quite the opposite. I found myself immediately immersed in each poem. I hadn't heard of Kooser before, but his poetry was so captivating that I will be sure to seek out other works by this author. His poems, on initial reading, are very literal, straight-forward works. But if reread, as I did more than once, they offer some thoughtful, profound insights. Well worth reading, repeatedly.

[Dave Schaafsma · Rating 4 out of 5]

As you can tell from the title, this is a collection of poetry not particularly focused on a topic or form. I am reading a lot of Koser this year, and this one won the Pulitzer Prize in 2005. Like much of his work, its about rural Nebraska, family, portraiture, landscape, in accessible language, prizing metaphor. Think Hugo, Stafford, Wright, Frost, the poetry of place. Kooser is a cancer survivor; here's one from the collection that pertains to those experiences:

At the Cancer Clinic

She is being helped toward the open door
that leads to the examining rooms
by two young women I take to be her sisters.
Each bends to the weight of an arm
and steps with the straight, tough bearing
of courage. At what must seem to be
a great distance, a nurse holds the door,
smiling and calling encouragement.
How patient she is in the crisp white sails
of her clothes. The sick woman
peers from under her funny knit cap
to watch each foot swing scuffing forward
and take its turn under her weight.
There is no restlessness or impatience
or anger anywhere in sight. Grace
fills the clean mold of this moment
and all the shuffling magazines grow still.

Here's another about his Father I liked very much, too:

Father

Today you would be ninety-seven
if you had lived, and we would all be
miserable, you and your children,
driving from clinic to clinic,
an ancient fearful hypochondriac
and his fretful son and daughter,
asking directions, trying to read
the complicated, fading map of cures.
But with your dignity intact
you have been gone for twenty years,
and I am glad for all of us, although
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 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.

Comfortable, and often warm, the importance of the every day, the ordinary.

[Melanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

If the poems in this collection are people, they would be much like Ted Kooser's 'Mourners' here to say goodbye 'but now they keep saying hello and hello, / peering into each other's faces, / slow to let go of each other's hands.'

These are twilight poems, written from 'his heart gone soft and blue with stories', nostalgic, mournful, celebratory and urgent. In fact it is the sense of emergency instilled in these poems that had me so transfixed.

I am in awe of the perfect economy of words, the elegant syntax, the crisp and robust sounds. These poems should be read aloud.

Favourites:

Home Medical Dictionary
The China Painters
Mother
Creamed Corn
Father
Pearl
Four Civil War Paintings by Winslow Homer 1-3

Highly recommend

[cab · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stumbled upon Ted Kooser's Delights and Shadows in the e-library, proving that chance meetings (there's a better word for this isn't there, my English vocabulary is going to the dogs after living in Japan) are still possible in the digital age.

Enjoyed the portraits of ordinary people that Kooser paints through his poems, which seem whimsical (and sometimes presumptive) in revealing, or supposing the dignified inner lives of his subjects. Sometimes proprietary (I'm thinking in particular of "Tattoo"), but more often careful and forgiving, Kooser's particular economy of style and restraint reminds me of the works of other American writers and poets writing about the suburbs.

Also, "After Years" bowled me over, because it seems to me to be about the extremely specific experience of having had the stupid audacity to volunteer to be an usher at pride after having your heart trampled by a queer man who doesn't use labels. I'm jesting, it's about catching sight of someone 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.

which was how it felt, acutely so.

[Emmkay · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wasn’t familiar with Ted Kooser, a (now former) US poet laureate, but now I’ll be searching out more of his work. This was terrific - he brings such an eye to the world around him. Also, he is a retired life insurance executive, which is the most inspiring thing ever.

My favourites included the first poem, “Walking on Tiptoe” (“There is little spring to our walk,/we are so burdened with responsibility,/all of the disciplinary actions/ that have fallen to us, the punishments,/the killings, and all with out feet/bound stiff in the skins of the conquered”), a perfect evocation of a type in “Student” (“He’s got his baseball cap on/backward as up he crawls, out of the froth/of a hangover and onto the sands of the future,/and lumbers, heavy with hope, into the library,”), and some wonderful work on aging, death, and memory (from “Tectonics” - “In only a few months/there begin to be fissures/in what we remember,/and within a year or two,/the facts break apart/one from another/and slowly begin to shift/and turn, grinding,/pushing up over each other/until their shapes/have been changed/and the past has become/a new world.”).

[Corey · Rating 5 out of 5]

He's a beautiful writer, of the earth and metaphysical, too. "All night, this soft rain from the distant past./No wonder I sometimes waken as a child."

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The peonies are up, the red sprouts burning in circles like birthday candles, for this is the month of my birth, as you know, the best month to be born in, thanks to you, everything ready to burst with living

There will be no more new flannel nightshirts sewn on your old black Singer, no birthday card addressed in a shaky but businesslike hand. You asked me if I would be sad when it happened and I am sad.

- A few lines from Kooser’s poem entitled Mother

This short book of poems won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 2005.

These are observational poems about relatable topics and life in the heartland of America. Some of his poems are especially vivid but in all cases Kooser relies heavily on meter. All of his poems sound pleasant when read aloud.

I loved the section of poems entitled The China Painters. These sixteen poems are about the authors’ parents generation and are heavy on imagery and nostalgia. I wish there were a few more poems like this section.

The one entitled Mother hit me especially hard.

4 stars.

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every poem in this collection by Nobel Laureate Ted Kooser captures such multi-sensory clarity, it felt like being transported in time and place. Only the very best of poetry does this so well. He creates visual imagery ala Ansel Adams or a painter with the technical skill of Norman Rockwell. He captures moments in words as adeptly as a skilled, veteran novelist. My bookshelves are lonely without a copy of "Delights and Shadows." I'm very eager to check out the rest of his work.

[KFed]

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 fall every night such that the architectural landscape of the city is never constant. And this all happens so seamlessly that the humans all remain under the impression, each day, that the day they encounter is somehow representative of the way things have always been, as if nothing had changed.

And so, I guess, the changed and the new are reckoned awesomely familiar, and the initial discomfort or lack of familiarity that the humans sense at the beginning of each day is eventually overwhelmed by a sense of, if not belonging, than at least comfortable routine. I can't help but wonder if this is what some good poems, and some good poets, are meant to do: give us something new under the mask of the ordinary, and convince us that this is the way these subjects have always been, that it just took the poet's words to remind or teach us.

But there's 'the ordinary,' and there's the ordinary, with the latter being what I described above and the former being, well, everyday shit that either isn't worth writing about or hasn't been written about compellingly enough to convince us that it was worthy of the act.

I'm sad to say that Ted Kooser's poems mostly fit into that former category. I know because I have felt the difference. If Louise Gluck can write a poem about a flower that makes me feel as if I've never truly seen a flower before, and Rita Dove can write a poem about dusting or housekeeping that recalls Proust's madeleine's (also ordinary), then I think it's fair to expect of Ted Kooser a poem about tip-toeing or swimming that makes the acts come alive with some insight deeper than the acts themselves -- even if it's just a simple description of these acts that makes them seem worthy of his words.

Instead, what lingered for me was a constant sense of "That's it?" Not least because critics and many other readers have so constantly praised him for his sense of 'the ordinary.' Or perhaps I simply don't know what that means. Sad, because Kooser has talent, and occasionally writes a line that packs a glimmer of a wallop.

Ultimately, though, I read these poems in a flash, without feeling or thinking anything, not because I was deeply moved or involved in them, but because I knew that once I put it down I wouldn't be picking it back up again.

That saddened me.

[Jeff Crompton · Rating 5 out of 5]

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 quote a couple of the poems; here is the ending of "In the Hall of Bones," a tour of a (presumably) imaginary museum of skeletons. After visiting mastadon, turtle, camel, and horse bones, we come to man:

Of all the skeletons
assembled here, this is the only one
in which once throbbed a heart
made sad by brooding on its shadow.

And here is "Starlight" in its entirety:

All night, this soft rain from the distant past.
No wonder I sometimes waken as a child.

A previous reviewer characterized modern poetry as regular sentences with creative line breaks. But rhythm, not rhyme, is what separates poetry from prose. Kooser's not-very-modern poetry is full of rhythm, flow, and wonderful images.

[Joe Haack · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

You will revisit these poems, you will want to write your own poems. Kooser is a new favorite.

[Kasandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Jessica · Rating 1 out of 5]

Modern Poetry

Modern poetry
is
simply regular sentences with
creative
line
breaks.

I find it
dull
and pretentious
and utterly

forgettable.

[Cheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Perfect for any of you rural Americans (or very good for any of the rest of you) who are struggling with the Poetry category on a reading challenge. Short, accessible poems that have an impact even if one only catches the surface meanings, but with a depth for those who like to dissect for metaphor, allusion, etc.

Much like Mary Oliver's works... and I also recommend those to beginners.

I would quote, but most of these are v. short stories and vignettes. The whole two verses or 16 lines need to be quoted, not just a line or two out of context. There are a couple of haiku length poems but I don't feel that those are exemplary. You can find example of Kooser's work online I'm sure.

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

a calm, pure, and poignant exploration on grief, the fear of getting older, beauty, and love. a marvellous collection of poetry. would love to read more of kooser’s work.

[Tori Thurmond · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books of poetry I’ve read in a while. I love how Kooser can turn something simple like a notebook or bug on a window into something meaningful.

[Jacqueline Knirnschild · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Ted Kooser’s poetry! Reminds me a bit of Billy Collins. Accessible, meditative, present.

My favorite poems were “Praying Hands,” “Telescope” and “Tectonics.”

[James Murphy · Rating 4 out of 5]

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 and simile that I find satisfying. So his description of a singing bird hauling up the heavy bucket of dawn makes me realize I've experienced it in just that way. And who hasn't been in tall summer grass where grasshoppers jump and slap the stalks like rain? I'd not read Kooser before I came across a poem of his about an old pickup truck sitting abandoned in a yard. I knew I'd seen that pickup many times and wondered what else Kooser could show me. So I came to Delights & Shadows. He didn't disappoint me. Kooser writes short poems mostly, matter of fact statements that become nuggets of wisdom and feeling as actual as a thunderstorm striding along the horizon. I think his poetry is remarkable for its clarity welded to deep understanding. I admire the patrician verbal symphonies of poets like Robert Lowell or Wallace Stevens. But Kooser can sing, too. And we need to stay in touch with poets like him who can stand under a vaulting Nebraska sky and point out to us the elegance of dry grass beside a country road, or the arrogance of crows. I like this kind of poetry that can run the bright flag of emotion up an ordinary pole.

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Winter Morning

A farmhouse window far back from the highway
speaks to the darkness in a small, sure voice.
Against the stillness, only a kettle's whisper,
and against the starry cold, one small blue ring of flame.

This is one of the best damn poetry books out there. What more can I say but get off your sorry ass and read them? When people complain there's no real poetry, only colorful prose chopped into short lines, pull this out and shut them the hell up. "Here, Dumbass--HERE! Here is the poetry you claim does not exist."

Seriously: This is damn excellent.

Tectonics

In only a few months
there begin to be fissures
in what we remember,
and within a year or two,
the facts break apart
one from another
and slowly begin to shift
and turn, grinding,
pushing up over each other
until their shapes
have been changed
and the past has become
a new world.
And after many years,
even a love affair,
one lush green island
all to itself,
perfectly detailed
with even a candle
softly lighting a smile,
may slide under the waves
like Atlantis,
scarcely rippling the heart.

[Abby · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pleasant, natural, uncomplicated poems. I have a feeling Ted Kooser is a thoroughly charming and kind man, the sort of person you’d like to have over for dinner and stay talking with you long past an acceptable hour.

Favorite in this collection:

“Tectonics”
In only a few months
there will begin to be fissures
in what we remember,
and within a year or two,
the facts break apart
one from another
and slowly begin to shift
and turn, grinding,
pushing up over each other
until their shapes
have been changed
and the past has become
a new world.
And after many years,
even a love affair,
one lush green island
all to itself,
perfectly detailed
with even a candle
softly lighting a smile,
may slide under the waves
like Atlantis,
scarcely rippling the heart.

Other favorites:
“Mourners”
“A Winter Morning”
“Turkey Vultures”
“A Jacquard Shawl”
“Telescope”
“Surviving”

[Kassi · Rating 3 out of 5]

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 one more book of poems to know so that I might be able to become more well read in the form. I would recommend it to anyone who wants to study poetry - especially popular poetry as I do believe that his words are popular; especially with college age kids.

[Roger DeBlanck · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kooser is an ingenious observer. He can examine commonplace, everyday occurrences and extrapolate something grand and beautiful from what he sees. He celebrates the hard work of working people. He honors the bliss found in solitary moments. He makes sorrow and grief less soul-crushing. His poems work like little scientific or philosophical lessons. He attests to a truth that we are more than mere transitory beings. The brilliance of his vision is how he illuminates the world around him and finds joy to counteract struggle and hardship. Delights and Shadows is an enlightening collection that will compel you to go about your day looking for the extraordinary in the ordinary.