New Releases by Ted Kooser

For Valentine?s Day 1986, Ted Kooser wrote ?Pocket Poem? and sent the tender, thoughtful composition to fifty women friends, starting an annual tradition that would persist for the next twenty-one years. Printed on postcards, the poems were mailed to a list of recipients that eventually grew to more than 2,500 women all over the United States. Valentines collects Kooser?s twenty-two years of Valentine?s Day poems, complemented with illustrations by Robert Hanna and a new poem appearing for the first time. ø Kooser?s valentine poems encompass all the facets of the holiday: the traditional hearts and candy, the brilliance and purity of love, the quiet beauty of friendship, and the bittersweetness of longing. Some of the poems use the word valentine, others do not, but there is never any doubt as to the purpose of Kooser?s creations.

Recently appointed as the new U. S. Poet Laureate, Ted Kooser has been writing and publishing poetry for more than forty years. In the pages of The Poetry Home Repair Manual, Kooser brings those decades of experience to bear. Here are tools and insights, the instructions (and warnings against instructions) that poets—aspiring or practicing—can use to hone their craft, perhaps into art. Using examples from his own rich literary oeuvre and from the work of a number of successful contemporary poets, the author schools us in the critical relationship between poet and reader, which is fundamental to what Kooser believes is poetry’s ultimate purpose: to reach other people and touch their hearts. Much more than a guidebook to writing and revising poems, this manual has all the comforts and merits of a long and enlightening conversation with a wise and patient old friend—a friend who is willing to share everything he’s learned about the art he’s spent a lifetime learning to execute so well.

A collection of poems written from the voices of survivors of the January 1888 Nebraska blizzard.

Sometimes setting pen to paper requires bravery, and writing well means breaking free of the rules learned in school. Liberating and emboldening the beginning writer are the goals of Ted Kooser and Steve Cox in this spirited book of practical wisdom that brings to bear decades of invaluable experience in writing, teaching, editing, and publishing. Unlike ?how to write? books that dwell on the angst and the agony of the trade, Writing Brave and Free is upbeat and accessible. The focus here is the work itself: how to get started and how to keep going, and never is heard a discouraging word such as ?no,? ?not,? or ?never.? Because of the wealth of their experience, the authors can offer the sort of practical publishing advice that novices need and yet rarely find. Organized in brief, user-friendly chapters?on everything from sensory details to a work environment, from creating suspense to revising and taking criticism?the book allows aspiring (and practicing) writers to dip in anywhere and find something of value.

Since 1986, U.S. Poet Laureate Kooser has been composing a poem to mark February 14th and sending it to a mailing list of women that now includes several hundred names. Those poems, including the one for 2006, have been gathered in this lovely letterpressed edition, limited to 500 copies. Mr. Kooser writes in his Author''s Note: Of all the activities I get involved in, sending valentines has been one of the most pleasurable. I intend to keep it up until I am silenced once and for all. --Open Books.

Named U.S. Poet Laureate for 2004-2006, Ted Kooser is one of America''s masters of the short metaphorical poem. Dana Gioia has remarked that Kooser has written more perfect poems than any poet of his generation.In Flying at Night: Poems 1965-1985, Kooser has selected poems from two of his earlier works, Sure Signs (1980) and One World at a Time (1985). Taken together or read one at a time, these poems clearly show why William Cole, writing in the Saturday Review, called Ted Kooser "a wonderful poet," and why Peter Stitt, writing in the Georgia Review, proclaimed him "a skilled and cunning writer. . . . An authentic ''poet of the American people.''"

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

In the "quietest magnificent book IUve ever read" (Jim Harrison, author of "Legends of the Fall") Ted Kooser describes with exquisite detail and humor the place he calls home in the rolling hills of southeastern Nebraska--an area known as the Bohemian Alps--where nothing is too big or too small for his attention.

A collection of poetry by Ted Kooser.

Ted Kooser’s third book in the Pitt Poetry Series is a selection of poems published in literary journals over a ten year period by a writer whose work has been praised for its clarity and accessiblity, its mastery of figurative language, and its warmth and charm.

The collection includes 17 broadsides and 29 small broadsides, keepsakes, and other ephemera.

Poems portray nature, the past, death, memories, the night, space exploration, the poor, city life, and health.