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Red Stilts
Red Stilts finds Pulitzer Prize-winner and former U. S. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser at the top of his imaginative and storytelling powers. Here are the richly metaphorical, imagistically masterful, clear and accessible poems for which he has become widely known. Kooser writes for an audience of everyday readers and believes poets “need to write poetry that doesn’t make people feel stupid.” Each poem in Red Stilts strives to reveal the complex beauties of the ordinary, of the world that’s right under our noses. Right under Kooser’s nose is rural America, most specifically the Great Plains, with its isolated villages, struggling economy, hard-working people and multiple beauties that surpass everything wrecked, wrong, or in error.
85 pages, Hardcover
Published September 8, 2020
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86 people want to read
About the author
Ted Kooser
101 books300 followersTed 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."
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 49 reviews
July 27, 2024
This was a beautiful book of poetry. It evokes emotions and moments of life that are so well captured by the poet’s words that you almost feel like they were your memories. I really enjoyed his descriptions. I shared some favorite excerpts below.
Some excerpts
A Letter
. . .
Imagine the warm weight of this child
as you carry him pressed to your breast,
for I am that child at this moment
and you are my father, carrying me
up dark Duff Avenue to the two-bedroom
house you recently borrow to buy,
three blocks from the park, from the band’s
last arrangement, a violet finale.
What you are feeling isn’t legerdemain,
a phantom child in your arms, but a moment
I’m forcing upon you. You are already
beginning to smell things, leaves cooling
in the maples above, freshly mown grass.
And to hear things, someone pushing a mower
long after dark in the light from a window,
not lifting his eyes as the two of you pass.
And, in an instant, I am too heavy to carry
and I walk at your side for a little while
but soon skip out ahead, and look back, and you
step up your pace but can never catch up,
and, in an instant, I am irretrievably
and altogether gone, the sound of my shoes
pattering over sidewalk, then fading.
Maybe one day I’ll come back, in a poem.
Behind you the band-shell park is emptying
and Dick Day is rolling his wooden band box
into a closet between ribs in a shell, locking
the door, and someone always out of sight
behind the arcs of color is waiting to switch off
what’s left of the lights, and you sit alone
on your porch, moving your feet just enough
to swing an inch into the future and back.
—-
Winter Deaths
That snowy February the deaths came at us
from far offshore, three in one week, and though
the death ship may at anchor below the horizon
it seemed to know within only a few yards
where we mourners were standing, at graveside,
and it was triangulating fire. Each shelling
shook us right to our knees, throwing up snow
and chunks of wet, black sod, the craters so close
we could smell the miles lying beneath us,
not only the odors of clay, mold, and gumbo
but, strangely, of seawater, too, as if it were
welling up through those eons of limestone,
like time itself. Then the deaths stopped. A week
slowly passed, then another, and those of us
who’d survived stood softly talking together
through the now-lengthening days, our backs
to the graves as they healed, peering into
one another’s stunned faces, then turning away.
—-
Sounds of a Summer Night
Up to his smile in the pond,
the leopard frog plays his kazoo.
A June bug plunks the dobro
of a window screen.
On a leaf, the tree frog strokes
her washboard with a twig.
A bobwhite toots two notes
on a pennywhistle.
Bellied in mud, a bullfrog
blows down the neck of a jug.
Owl on the ocarina,
raccoon on the trashcan,
but not a sound from the snake
who slips through the night
in his tight black leather suit,
guitar picks sewn all over it.
—-
Apron
Most of the time it hung flat
down her flat front, like a shade
drawn over a window. No one
could see within her, or who
she really was, all grays behind it,
her legs below it, thin in loose
brown stockings coarse as burlap,
fallen in rings above her slippers,
their insteps slit for comfort.
Some afternoons in apple time
she’d be out in her yard, the hem
bunched up in one hand, forming
a basket, while with the other
she’d pick out only three or four
nice apples, leaving a hundred
hanging. Passing by, you wouldn’t
have noticed her inside the arms
of that tree, a cobbler’s worth
of apples clutched in her apron,
invisible woman, tilted a little
to favor the leg on the right.
—-
The Couple
Under a sky of white fluorescence
and surrounded by chattering gulls,
the waves of her illness would lift them
then let them fall, and in each trough
they took on a little more water,
the test results spilling over the rails,
but both were still able to bail
and they bailed, she in the bow, looking
forward, and he in the stern, his eyes
on her back, her shoulders, the light
in her well-kept hair. Days passed,
weeks passed, months passed until
she’d lost the strength for bailing,
and all the color had been bleached
from his hopeful face, but still
they drifted on, a clamor of gulls
surrounding them, calling out
to one another, a dizzying flurry
of white that followed their boat
as now, riding low in the water,
it floated toward the gray horizon,
that ever-leveling line, and it seemed
he’d have to swim a long, long way
if he were ever willing to return.
—-
Driving to Dwight
Before I could get to the place where I saw it,
that young fox was gone, having looked up
from whatever it had found on the road
and was playing with, cricket or field mouse.
It had seen my car coming and scampered off
into the long grass of the ditch. Four things
we’re gone in that instant: first, the fox;
then its playfulness, too, seeing its dancing
on the gravel, batting at whatever it found,
so small it too had disappeared; and last
was that featureless vent in the grass
that had opened for these, then had closed,
disappearing into its greens. The fifth thing
wasn’t gone: my delight, to come upon
something like this for the very first time,
so far into my years—my car slowing down—
peering out into the world, hoping to
see it again. That joy hadn’t scampered away
after the others. I caught it and carried it
this far, smoothing its fur, almost too happy
with having it happen to share it with you.
—-
Woolly Caterpillar
I came upon you on a sidewalk,
black as a hyphen slowly crossing a page,
as if you were trying to connect
the last word in October with a word in
the April to come. From closer up
you looked like a casket being borne
by a half-dozen soldiers walking in step
and I stopped, as one would, as you passed.
Your casket was draped with the flag
of your country, orange like a leaf,
and there were clusters of old leaves,
many in orange, curled up in lawn chairs
all along the processional, younger ones
restless and darting about. I thought
I should take off my cap and I did,
and the late autumn wind in my ears
was the bugle that played, not so well,
as they carried you into the distance.
—-
Applause
At the close of her solo recital
the young pianist bows, and her hair,
like a curtain of gold, falls over
her modesty, as if she were smiling
down into a pool, and as we stand
to applaud, she lifts up her face,
shining and bright from the kiss
of that mirroring water, then bows
once again. Our applause has the sound
of a sudden downpouring of leaves,
a warm yellow clatter like that of
a gingko in autumn, when it drops
every leaf, all at once, after a frost,
though this time the frost was those
crystalline notes that she shook
from the tips of her fingers. And now
she is shaking her head, as if to say
that all of this praise is too much,
but the clapping keeps leafing down,
even out of the balcony shadows.
Some excerpts
A Letter
. . .
Imagine the warm weight of this child
as you carry him pressed to your breast,
for I am that child at this moment
and you are my father, carrying me
up dark Duff Avenue to the two-bedroom
house you recently borrow to buy,
three blocks from the park, from the band’s
last arrangement, a violet finale.
What you are feeling isn’t legerdemain,
a phantom child in your arms, but a moment
I’m forcing upon you. You are already
beginning to smell things, leaves cooling
in the maples above, freshly mown grass.
And to hear things, someone pushing a mower
long after dark in the light from a window,
not lifting his eyes as the two of you pass.
And, in an instant, I am too heavy to carry
and I walk at your side for a little while
but soon skip out ahead, and look back, and you
step up your pace but can never catch up,
and, in an instant, I am irretrievably
and altogether gone, the sound of my shoes
pattering over sidewalk, then fading.
Maybe one day I’ll come back, in a poem.
Behind you the band-shell park is emptying
and Dick Day is rolling his wooden band box
into a closet between ribs in a shell, locking
the door, and someone always out of sight
behind the arcs of color is waiting to switch off
what’s left of the lights, and you sit alone
on your porch, moving your feet just enough
to swing an inch into the future and back.
—-
Winter Deaths
That snowy February the deaths came at us
from far offshore, three in one week, and though
the death ship may at anchor below the horizon
it seemed to know within only a few yards
where we mourners were standing, at graveside,
and it was triangulating fire. Each shelling
shook us right to our knees, throwing up snow
and chunks of wet, black sod, the craters so close
we could smell the miles lying beneath us,
not only the odors of clay, mold, and gumbo
but, strangely, of seawater, too, as if it were
welling up through those eons of limestone,
like time itself. Then the deaths stopped. A week
slowly passed, then another, and those of us
who’d survived stood softly talking together
through the now-lengthening days, our backs
to the graves as they healed, peering into
one another’s stunned faces, then turning away.
—-
Sounds of a Summer Night
Up to his smile in the pond,
the leopard frog plays his kazoo.
A June bug plunks the dobro
of a window screen.
On a leaf, the tree frog strokes
her washboard with a twig.
A bobwhite toots two notes
on a pennywhistle.
Bellied in mud, a bullfrog
blows down the neck of a jug.
Owl on the ocarina,
raccoon on the trashcan,
but not a sound from the snake
who slips through the night
in his tight black leather suit,
guitar picks sewn all over it.
—-
Apron
Most of the time it hung flat
down her flat front, like a shade
drawn over a window. No one
could see within her, or who
she really was, all grays behind it,
her legs below it, thin in loose
brown stockings coarse as burlap,
fallen in rings above her slippers,
their insteps slit for comfort.
Some afternoons in apple time
she’d be out in her yard, the hem
bunched up in one hand, forming
a basket, while with the other
she’d pick out only three or four
nice apples, leaving a hundred
hanging. Passing by, you wouldn’t
have noticed her inside the arms
of that tree, a cobbler’s worth
of apples clutched in her apron,
invisible woman, tilted a little
to favor the leg on the right.
—-
The Couple
Under a sky of white fluorescence
and surrounded by chattering gulls,
the waves of her illness would lift them
then let them fall, and in each trough
they took on a little more water,
the test results spilling over the rails,
but both were still able to bail
and they bailed, she in the bow, looking
forward, and he in the stern, his eyes
on her back, her shoulders, the light
in her well-kept hair. Days passed,
weeks passed, months passed until
she’d lost the strength for bailing,
and all the color had been bleached
from his hopeful face, but still
they drifted on, a clamor of gulls
surrounding them, calling out
to one another, a dizzying flurry
of white that followed their boat
as now, riding low in the water,
it floated toward the gray horizon,
that ever-leveling line, and it seemed
he’d have to swim a long, long way
if he were ever willing to return.
—-
Driving to Dwight
Before I could get to the place where I saw it,
that young fox was gone, having looked up
from whatever it had found on the road
and was playing with, cricket or field mouse.
It had seen my car coming and scampered off
into the long grass of the ditch. Four things
we’re gone in that instant: first, the fox;
then its playfulness, too, seeing its dancing
on the gravel, batting at whatever it found,
so small it too had disappeared; and last
was that featureless vent in the grass
that had opened for these, then had closed,
disappearing into its greens. The fifth thing
wasn’t gone: my delight, to come upon
something like this for the very first time,
so far into my years—my car slowing down—
peering out into the world, hoping to
see it again. That joy hadn’t scampered away
after the others. I caught it and carried it
this far, smoothing its fur, almost too happy
with having it happen to share it with you.
—-
Woolly Caterpillar
I came upon you on a sidewalk,
black as a hyphen slowly crossing a page,
as if you were trying to connect
the last word in October with a word in
the April to come. From closer up
you looked like a casket being borne
by a half-dozen soldiers walking in step
and I stopped, as one would, as you passed.
Your casket was draped with the flag
of your country, orange like a leaf,
and there were clusters of old leaves,
many in orange, curled up in lawn chairs
all along the processional, younger ones
restless and darting about. I thought
I should take off my cap and I did,
and the late autumn wind in my ears
was the bugle that played, not so well,
as they carried you into the distance.
—-
Applause
At the close of her solo recital
the young pianist bows, and her hair,
like a curtain of gold, falls over
her modesty, as if she were smiling
down into a pool, and as we stand
to applaud, she lifts up her face,
shining and bright from the kiss
of that mirroring water, then bows
once again. Our applause has the sound
of a sudden downpouring of leaves,
a warm yellow clatter like that of
a gingko in autumn, when it drops
every leaf, all at once, after a frost,
though this time the frost was those
crystalline notes that she shook
from the tips of her fingers. And now
she is shaking her head, as if to say
that all of this praise is too much,
but the clapping keeps leafing down,
even out of the balcony shadows.
September 6, 2020
My wife, Ruth, and I read poems aloud to one another after supper each evening. Of the many poets whose work rewards such reading, none delights us more than Ted Kooser. We were excited by the arrival of his new collection, Red Stilts, published this month, September 2020, in a beautiful hardcover edition by Copper Canyon Press. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for an earlier book and two-term U.S. Poet Laureate, Kooser is a lucid, eloquent observer of the ordinary world: people glimpsed from a car, storm clouds rolling across the plains, a red fox surprised on a gravel road, the streets and stores of midwestern towns, farm trucks loaded with tools, births and burials, friends and frogs, birds and bread. He sees and ponders what others pass over. Rich with memories from eight decades of living, aware of gifts as well as losses, he is unassumingly wise. If you like poetry, you will love this book. If you think poetry is too fussy or obscure, give Ted Kooser a try, and he will open your eyes.
May 27, 2022
I didn’t enjoy this Kooser collection quite as much as some of his other books, but it was still quintessentially Kooser, so it deserves five stars. I had just finished his chapbook, A Man with a Rake, and perhaps just needed a longer rest between the two. Whether pulling out childhood memories or setting himself a task to find a poem topic on a walk, he manages to draw us in to very simple moments for a second look.
The most touching poem for me was “Shame.” It’s good therapy for all of us to own up
to our failings and shames once in a while. It’s also cathartic for readers. He remembers asking a college student working as a waitress to go out to dinner with him. He’d recently divorced.
“…we walked downtown, both of us shy,
both awkward, both scented and scrubbed
and overdressed and clopping along
in new and uncomfortable shoes…”
She confided the medical problems she was facing and he confessed to readers,
“…and it frightened me, having no courage
for anyone’s pain but my own, knowing
nothing about love…
and fifty years later I’m still ashamed…”
In “A Place under a Roof,” Kooser describes the joy of daily seeing a little brown bat under the eaves “…like a wallet / or coin purse that someone had tried to hide.” He’s disappointed when the bat isn’t there the next summer:
“…Yet there’s a place
in that corner which, only for me now,
is ours, still full of both of us, empty.”
We can feel that the years have taught him much about love.
The most touching poem for me was “Shame.” It’s good therapy for all of us to own up
to our failings and shames once in a while. It’s also cathartic for readers. He remembers asking a college student working as a waitress to go out to dinner with him. He’d recently divorced.
“…we walked downtown, both of us shy,
both awkward, both scented and scrubbed
and overdressed and clopping along
in new and uncomfortable shoes…”
She confided the medical problems she was facing and he confessed to readers,
“…and it frightened me, having no courage
for anyone’s pain but my own, knowing
nothing about love…
and fifty years later I’m still ashamed…”
In “A Place under a Roof,” Kooser describes the joy of daily seeing a little brown bat under the eaves “…like a wallet / or coin purse that someone had tried to hide.” He’s disappointed when the bat isn’t there the next summer:
“…Yet there’s a place
in that corner which, only for me now,
is ours, still full of both of us, empty.”
We can feel that the years have taught him much about love.
September 20, 2020
Ted Kooser is one of our most valuable elders and this collection of poetry shows us why. He continues to share his relationship to the world, to life, to growing old and to memory, in ways that allow the rest of us to reflect and learn from. At least that is what I come away from this collection thinking. I want to Be Like Ted.
May 8, 2022
So good.
June 26, 2021
3.5. I’d like to read more of his joyful poems, there was an excess of hardship and misfortune in this collection. My favorites were Starling, Driving to Dwight, Red stilts, and Man at a bulletin board.
November 7, 2020
I liked the aesthetics of this cover when I first saw this book in the bookstore. I picked it up and flipped through a couple of pages and liked one poem I read. Then I bought it. Over a few days, I've been reading a collection of poems- no idea what exactly is going on or what the theme is, but I enjoyed it. Most of it was just some observations Kooser made. However, his observations... are definitely something else, especially in how he wrote what he wants to say.
I'm not exactly the greatest at reviewing poetry because, like, what do I review on?? The entire thing? Too broad. A specific poem? Too narrowed. So... instead of writing more on why you might like this book, I'm adding three poems I enjoyed the most (not ranked yet so they're vaguely upon the top of the list). I hope you like them.
A Woman and Two Men
I was past in an instant. It was raining,
just softly, after a morning-long shower,
no sounds but the hiss of the pavement,
my wipers whupping on low. Two men
in hardhats were parked on the shoulder
in a truck with a ladder rack and a bed
full of tools. A woman driving a pickup
with a camper had pulled up a few yards
behind them and had walked up the road
to the passenger's side, her hair wet,
her arms wrapped about her. She had
boots, a fringed leather jacket with beads
on the fringe, and jeans with galaxies
of rhinestones on the pockets. The man
on the passenger's side had rolled down
his window, but only partway, and was
staring over the hood while the driver
leaned far forward and over to talk,
his shoulder pressed into the wheel,
all this in a flash, those three at the side
of the highway, the fourth glancing over
in passing. I could in that instant feel
something common between us, among us,
around us, within us. It was more than
a light April rain playing over a road.
A Place Under Roof
A summer ago, a little brown bat
slept through the days tucked into a corner
up under our roof, coming and going.
I'd look up to see it there, like a wallet
or coin purse that someone had tried to hide,
hooking it over a nail, not much within it
but sleep. Every night the whole sky
belonged to the bat, but each day it had
just this one spot, and that corner
became ours, the bat's place in the shadows
and my place to peer into, finding it there.
This summer it's gone. There's a wasp nest
the size of a golf ball just inches away
that's alive with black wasps, but a nest
doesn't fly off each night and flutter
back in the morning. Yet there's a place
in that corner which, only for me now,
is outs, still full of both us, empty.
One of my top favorites, considerably high in the list (not too sure if it's #1 or anything)
Shame
You were a college student, a waitress
paying your way through the sixties,
and I was recently divorced, alone
and lonely, looking for someone to love
in those dreary years when it seemed
no one else was willing "to make
a commitment," as we said back then,
and I mustered my courage and asked you
to dinner, and met you at your door,
and we walked downtown, both of us shy,
both awkward, both scented and scrubbed
and overdressed and clopping along
in new and uncomfortable shoes,
and over wine and dinner, as we began
to feel more comfortable together,
sometimes touching each other's hands,
I told you my story and you told me
yours, the way young people will,
you finishing yours with the news
that you had leukemia, the slow kind
that with "adequate treatment"
could keep you alive, at least for a time,
and it frightened me, having no courage
for anyone's pain but my own, knowing
nothing at all about love, and surely
you must have been terribly hurt
to read all that in my expression,
and fifty years later I'm still ashamed
to have been the kind of person
who could then walk you back to your door
still early in the evening, and leave you
there with a dry little kiss and a promise,
who would never phone, who would avoid
the restaurant where I'd first seen you
wiping the tables, working your way
through so much than college,
you in your starched uniform apron
with a plastic tag pinned to your breast
and your name that I've even forgotten.
Yes, please sign off Goodreads and order this book.
I'm not exactly the greatest at reviewing poetry because, like, what do I review on?? The entire thing? Too broad. A specific poem? Too narrowed. So... instead of writing more on why you might like this book, I'm adding three poems I enjoyed the most (not ranked yet so they're vaguely upon the top of the list). I hope you like them.
A Woman and Two Men
I was past in an instant. It was raining,
just softly, after a morning-long shower,
no sounds but the hiss of the pavement,
my wipers whupping on low. Two men
in hardhats were parked on the shoulder
in a truck with a ladder rack and a bed
full of tools. A woman driving a pickup
with a camper had pulled up a few yards
behind them and had walked up the road
to the passenger's side, her hair wet,
her arms wrapped about her. She had
boots, a fringed leather jacket with beads
on the fringe, and jeans with galaxies
of rhinestones on the pockets. The man
on the passenger's side had rolled down
his window, but only partway, and was
staring over the hood while the driver
leaned far forward and over to talk,
his shoulder pressed into the wheel,
all this in a flash, those three at the side
of the highway, the fourth glancing over
in passing. I could in that instant feel
something common between us, among us,
around us, within us. It was more than
a light April rain playing over a road.
A Place Under Roof
A summer ago, a little brown bat
slept through the days tucked into a corner
up under our roof, coming and going.
I'd look up to see it there, like a wallet
or coin purse that someone had tried to hide,
hooking it over a nail, not much within it
but sleep. Every night the whole sky
belonged to the bat, but each day it had
just this one spot, and that corner
became ours, the bat's place in the shadows
and my place to peer into, finding it there.
This summer it's gone. There's a wasp nest
the size of a golf ball just inches away
that's alive with black wasps, but a nest
doesn't fly off each night and flutter
back in the morning. Yet there's a place
in that corner which, only for me now,
is outs, still full of both us, empty.
One of my top favorites, considerably high in the list (not too sure if it's #1 or anything)
Shame
You were a college student, a waitress
paying your way through the sixties,
and I was recently divorced, alone
and lonely, looking for someone to love
in those dreary years when it seemed
no one else was willing "to make
a commitment," as we said back then,
and I mustered my courage and asked you
to dinner, and met you at your door,
and we walked downtown, both of us shy,
both awkward, both scented and scrubbed
and overdressed and clopping along
in new and uncomfortable shoes,
and over wine and dinner, as we began
to feel more comfortable together,
sometimes touching each other's hands,
I told you my story and you told me
yours, the way young people will,
you finishing yours with the news
that you had leukemia, the slow kind
that with "adequate treatment"
could keep you alive, at least for a time,
and it frightened me, having no courage
for anyone's pain but my own, knowing
nothing at all about love, and surely
you must have been terribly hurt
to read all that in my expression,
and fifty years later I'm still ashamed
to have been the kind of person
who could then walk you back to your door
still early in the evening, and leave you
there with a dry little kiss and a promise,
who would never phone, who would avoid
the restaurant where I'd first seen you
wiping the tables, working your way
through so much than college,
you in your starched uniform apron
with a plastic tag pinned to your breast
and your name that I've even forgotten.
Yes, please sign off Goodreads and order this book.
December 19, 2020
No apologies for the five stars. You see, in my opinion, there is no better poet. I discovered Ted's work while vacationing in Nebraska; yes, I'm one of those. Nebraska's new slogan, 'Honestly, it's not for everyone,' speaks to me. I learned that Nebraska is where I feel most at home as a child when we were plunked down in Seward's small town. A shock after living in San Diego. Our father worked on the nearby missile site. Since then, the air has always felt honest, safe, and organic.
In about 2007, I stepped into Chapters Books in Seward, and there on the shelf nearest the door were Ted's books of poetry. I opened one and read a short poem. I'm not a poetry reader, but I thought that was nice. I reread the poem and fell in love. It has been a love affair ever since. All of his books will receive five stars, for he can do no wrong.
I am so careful when I receive a new book of poetry by Ted. I wait until early AM when everyone is asleep. I read with only the cat, Lady Mary, next to me. Then when I hear the husband up, I quickly put the book away.
I sit with my coffee and the cat, waiting for the moment when he reaches for the dog's leash to begin his walk. I sneak the book out again, read a few more poems, and will reread them again and again.
This is the first of his books that felt a bit melancholy, as if he is looking towards the future with sadness. The poems remain simple, easily understood, yet profoundly different from many of his earlier works. They continue to touch my heart in ways that no other writing can.
In about 2007, I stepped into Chapters Books in Seward, and there on the shelf nearest the door were Ted's books of poetry. I opened one and read a short poem. I'm not a poetry reader, but I thought that was nice. I reread the poem and fell in love. It has been a love affair ever since. All of his books will receive five stars, for he can do no wrong.
I am so careful when I receive a new book of poetry by Ted. I wait until early AM when everyone is asleep. I read with only the cat, Lady Mary, next to me. Then when I hear the husband up, I quickly put the book away.
I sit with my coffee and the cat, waiting for the moment when he reaches for the dog's leash to begin his walk. I sneak the book out again, read a few more poems, and will reread them again and again.
This is the first of his books that felt a bit melancholy, as if he is looking towards the future with sadness. The poems remain simple, easily understood, yet profoundly different from many of his earlier works. They continue to touch my heart in ways that no other writing can.
July 29, 2021
3 - "liked it"
In times of chaos and well.. chaos, Red Stilts is a refreshing breath of fresh air. Ted Kooser has the ability to see beauty in even the simplest things. When all hope for the future is lost and abandoned, this book of poems restores it. No, there isn't anything that can change the world, nothing about social justice, nothing about the corruption of this country. Just a simple reminder to pause and take a look around, really look, and enjoy it. Don't take this life for granted. To describe this book of poems in one word: grounding.
Tree Frog
Late evening, a velvety black
beyond the high windows, and on one
a tiny tree frog with its legs spread
presses its soft, white belly to the glass.
This night it gets to be the evening star.
In times of chaos and well.. chaos, Red Stilts is a refreshing breath of fresh air. Ted Kooser has the ability to see beauty in even the simplest things. When all hope for the future is lost and abandoned, this book of poems restores it. No, there isn't anything that can change the world, nothing about social justice, nothing about the corruption of this country. Just a simple reminder to pause and take a look around, really look, and enjoy it. Don't take this life for granted. To describe this book of poems in one word: grounding.
Tree Frog
Late evening, a velvety black
beyond the high windows, and on one
a tiny tree frog with its legs spread
presses its soft, white belly to the glass.
This night it gets to be the evening star.
May 20, 2022
3.5 stars. No darlings were killed in the making of this book of poems. There is a disappointingly wide streak of aimlessness throughout which makes for too many poems that are just fine at best and mediocre at worst. Never been bored by Ted Kooser before.
However, that said, there is some scattered brilliance here, a few poems in my mind that rank among the best Kooser has ever written. The collection is uneven, yes, but the good is very very good indeed, with Kooser's apparently divine powers of observation on full display.
However, that said, there is some scattered brilliance here, a few poems in my mind that rank among the best Kooser has ever written. The collection is uneven, yes, but the good is very very good indeed, with Kooser's apparently divine powers of observation on full display.
January 26, 2021
I love the accessibility of these poems; they didn't leave me wondering what they were about. I would recommend this book to anyone who says they don't really "get" poetry. Kooser writes in such down to earth language and about common things in a refreshing way.
July 14, 2025
not my favourite of Ted Kooser’s collections but still so solid, so beautiful!!
July 25, 2025
Poemes de moments ben triats (i ben explicats) que a mi no aconsegueixen emocionar-me. Només ho ha fet "Vergonya". Els que m'han agradat més: "Recital", "Un retrat fotogràfic" i La parella".
August 19, 2020
Ted Kooser never disappoints, and in his latest collection of poetry (his fifteenth) his words walk elevated among us, as in the title poem where he describes himself as a child building himself a pair of stilts so he could step out into his sidewalk "tilted far forward, clopping fast and away/down the walk, a foot above my neighborhood,/the summer in my hair." Kooser has a gift for transforming objects of ordinary life--stilts, tire tracks in the snow, a bottle bobbing in a river, streetlamps--into heavenly subjects that teach and inform us. There's not a single weak, flabby, or lame poem in the entire book.
January 4, 2026
Driving a gravel road in the country
I saw a hawk fly up out of a ditch
with a mouse in its beak, and it flew
along beside my car for a minute,
the mouse still alive, its little legs
running as fast as they could, and there
we were, the three of us, all going
in the same direction, west, at just
a little under forty miles per hour.
-- "At Dusk, in December"
Between us and the next world
is a fiberboard ceiling like so many thousand
of others, two-by-two tiles in a frail metal grid,
sagging in spots as if cupping the great weight
of the dust, rust, and air in the stale space
above it, where a patterned stamped-tin ceiling
coated with ancient enamel makes a fit roof
above that temporary stop for a departing spirit,
while below the dropped ceiling, dust sifts down
through the pores in the tiles, like time. We see it
on the coatrack's hangers waiting to be chimed.
-- "Dropped Ceiling"
A wake of black waves foamy with pebbles
follows the plow, rolls all the way up
to the fence, slaps into the grass and trickles
back, while farther out a spray of white gulls,
wings like splashes, are splashing down.
Spring on the prairie, a sky reaching forever
in every direction, and here at my feet,
distilled from all that blue, a single drop
caught in the spoon of a leaf, a robin's egg.
-- "Spring Landscape"
I saw a hawk fly up out of a ditch
with a mouse in its beak, and it flew
along beside my car for a minute,
the mouse still alive, its little legs
running as fast as they could, and there
we were, the three of us, all going
in the same direction, west, at just
a little under forty miles per hour.
-- "At Dusk, in December"
Between us and the next world
is a fiberboard ceiling like so many thousand
of others, two-by-two tiles in a frail metal grid,
sagging in spots as if cupping the great weight
of the dust, rust, and air in the stale space
above it, where a patterned stamped-tin ceiling
coated with ancient enamel makes a fit roof
above that temporary stop for a departing spirit,
while below the dropped ceiling, dust sifts down
through the pores in the tiles, like time. We see it
on the coatrack's hangers waiting to be chimed.
-- "Dropped Ceiling"
A wake of black waves foamy with pebbles
follows the plow, rolls all the way up
to the fence, slaps into the grass and trickles
back, while farther out a spray of white gulls,
wings like splashes, are splashing down.
Spring on the prairie, a sky reaching forever
in every direction, and here at my feet,
distilled from all that blue, a single drop
caught in the spoon of a leaf, a robin's egg.
-- "Spring Landscape"
December 1, 2020
The first poem, The Letter, is my favorite, but I don't recommend anyone reading it alone because it's a punch in the gut. He doesn't just recall a memory, he lives it, all while being grounded in the present. When he writes, "Maybe one day I'll come back, in a poem" I can't help but think of all the past places we live in while continuing our lives in the present moment. The poem, Recital, magnifies a small moment when a leaf, encouraged by the wind, plays the tire tracks left by a garbage truck like a piano. Another poem, House Moving, explores a cellar, which has just been opened up after a hundred years: "And the wind, with something new to do, is scouring out the damp rock cellar..." Kooser's humor and joy for life feel like that moment when I notice the twinkling of a small treasure buried in the dirt or leaves while I'm out for a walk. Sometimes I have to stop everything I'm doing and retrace my steps, and sometimes the treasure is the evidence of another person's loss. His observations encourage the reader to give life more attention, to ask our imaginations, "what do you make of that?"
January 24, 2025
There is a nostalgic winsomeness in the poetry of Ted Kooser, as well as an almost-contradictory sense of feeling both regretful and blessed about one's life. Perhaps it is a feeling that only those of us who hail from, and live in, the Midwest feel. Perhaps not. I like to think it is universal.
Kooser's 2020 book of poetry, "Red Stilts"---his fifteenth---may be representative of his previous work, but I can neither confirm nor deny this, as it's the first book of poetry of his that I have read. I do know that, based on this book, I understand why he is a Pulitzer Prize winner and a former (2004-2006) U.S. Poet Laureate. Besides being extremely accessible, his poetry has a vitality that belies the fact that he is in his 80s.
His poems are almost exclusively the slice-of-life kind of poetry that describes life in the Midwest, specifically Nebraska, where he and his wife live. He writes lovingly about animals (birds, especially, tend to be a favorite subject), sunsets, snowy days, broken sidewalks, abandoned factories, streetlights glowing on foggy nights, and the general ennui and sadness of post-industrial small town life in the 21st-century.
Kooser's 2020 book of poetry, "Red Stilts"---his fifteenth---may be representative of his previous work, but I can neither confirm nor deny this, as it's the first book of poetry of his that I have read. I do know that, based on this book, I understand why he is a Pulitzer Prize winner and a former (2004-2006) U.S. Poet Laureate. Besides being extremely accessible, his poetry has a vitality that belies the fact that he is in his 80s.
His poems are almost exclusively the slice-of-life kind of poetry that describes life in the Midwest, specifically Nebraska, where he and his wife live. He writes lovingly about animals (birds, especially, tend to be a favorite subject), sunsets, snowy days, broken sidewalks, abandoned factories, streetlights glowing on foggy nights, and the general ennui and sadness of post-industrial small town life in the 21st-century.
October 21, 2020
Kooser's attention to the world is a breath of fresh air for me. He describes the Midwestern U S in ways that fascinate this eastern. This volume contains many poems about aging, how over time the past is abandoned literally - an abandoned button factory in "Buttons" - and otherwise - a youthful date remembered but the name of the woman forgotten in "Shame." Frequently in this volume, memories of women are accompanied by the realization that the speaker of the poem did not fully know or appreciate them. And the leaves, the leaves falling through these poems render the poems, especially those at the end of the book, autumnal. What a pleasure.
If you can, sample the poems "A Caesura" and "The Couple" for two differing examples of Kooser's art. "A Caesura" is a deeply humane rendering of an observed moment, while "The Couple" uses a metaphore extended through the entire poem.
If you can, sample the poems "A Caesura" and "The Couple" for two differing examples of Kooser's art. "A Caesura" is a deeply humane rendering of an observed moment, while "The Couple" uses a metaphore extended through the entire poem.
September 28, 2020
Every time I read the latest volume of Ted Kooser's poetry I pray it's not the last - like the last one, Kindest Regards, almost too good to be true. Now once again we have been gifted, with his 15th collection "Red Stilts." Ted's poetry is the essence of mindfulness, asking the reader to join him in minute observations of the hawk, the bat, dragonflies; bringing the same immersion of self in the almost-blind, the vet, the pianist, the "many we pass without seeing." Put simply, we are they, and in this volume we are also Ted as he evokes "our" phantom childhood, that slight memory of shame, a person we might have loved. Connecting our small joys, looming fears, griefs and glimpses of beauty is an especially timely and rich gift in these perplexing and distancing times.
September 2, 2022
I picked this book up at a store more than a year ago and put it in to my "to read" pile. Finally pulled it out and wow!! I was not familiar with Kooser, so this was a lovely surprise. Beautiful poems, so perceptive and rich.My favorite is "Helping". I tend to favor poems with a domestic theme, in particular exploring an inanimate thing (object, room, etc.) in detail, then relating it to an experience, memory, emotion. So this was right up my alley. I also loved "At Dusk in December", and "Shame" just broke my heart. Now that I finished the book, 'I'm enjoying reading other reviewers' favorites. And I look forward to reading more Ted Kooser.
June 5, 2021
I have been slowly working my way through this thin volume—reading a poem or two before turning out the lights. While I did not love the book as much as I have Kooser’s earlier work, realizing that this lovely man is now in his 80’s I will say that several poems still showed his old magic. It was worth it to me. Like visiting an old friend. The joy was more in recalling poems I still love from prior work, but I admire that he is still going.
March 14, 2021
Ted Kooser delivers another group of accessible poems that address everyday life--it's pleasures and griefs. I always feel a connection with Kooser's poems--to the land, to the small towns and rural life he depicts. I go to him for comfort and the reminder that life can be good, that beauty lies in the simple things if one is a keen observer of the world immediately around one.
June 19, 2023
The poem Shame towards the tail end of this collection was surprisingly the only standout poem for me in the entire collection. I would recommend his previous collections, such as ‘Splitting an Order’, or ‘Delights and Shadows’ and would skip this one. Kooser is a great voice in American poetry, but this one fell short for me.
February 12, 2025
Ted Kooser writes like an impressionist, capturing a precise sliver of a moment and writing about it so delicately. Many of the poems were misses, but those that hit reallyyyy hit. I usually give up on poetry collections halfway, but the allure of finding a gem kept me going through the entire collection
May 16, 2021
Classic Kooser and not missing a beat here. He paints Rural America with definitive colors, understanding our strengths and weaknesses and not being judgmental or taking sides - in this day and age that is a strong muscle to have. "Shame" and "Buttons" my favorites - and quite different themes.
April 13, 2024
Always read a poem book during April Poetry Month. Ted is still my favorite poet. He takes the mundane and spins it, showing us a new vantage point to look at things a new way. Love the way his mind works.
September 8, 2020
I want to read this again tomorrow and better understand what I want to write here. For now, it's best to say this collection is the usually-wonderful Ted Kooser stuff.
November 19, 2020
I always enjoy reading Ted's work. He has such a way with putting his ideas on paper. I enjoyed reading these poems and I know I'll enjoy them again when I re-read them!
November 25, 2020
The book is beautiful and memorable. Looser has a way of blessing everyday things. His poetry is a comfort.
December 31, 2020
I think I have read all of his poetry books now, and enjoyed all of them.
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