Ted Kooser

Biography

Ted Kooser, the US Poet Laureate from 2004 to 2006, is the author of more than a dozen books of poetry and prose, including Delights and Shadows (Copper Canyon, 2004), winner of the Pulitzer Prize for poetry; and Local Wonders: Seasons in the Bohemian Alps (Nebraska, 2002). His latest book, Valentines, was published in February by the University of Nebraska Press.

See Work

POETRY / Fall 2008

Zinc Lid

By Ted Kooser

It’s the gray of canning season rain,
neither cool nor warm, and mottled
with feeble light.

POETRY / Fall 2008

Dead Fly

By Ted Kooser

This black sedan lies on its top
on the kitchen window sill, its wheels
in the air, its battery drained,
the oil trickling into the cylinders.

POETRY / Spring 2008

Window Shade

By Ted Kooser

In its frame of light it faintly glows,
like a projection screen […]

POETRY / Spring 2008

A Mouse in a Trap

By Ted Kooser

A tiny wood raft was afloat
on the cold gray sea
of the cellar floor […]

POETRY / Spring 2008

By Starlight

By Ted Kooser

My neighbors’ dog, shut out of their house
a quarter mile uphill from us, has barked
all night, protesting. 

POETRY / Spring 2008

At Dawn

By Ted Kooser

I watched
a junco
climb a spruce
as if upon
a spiral stair […]