Most Popular Books by Ted Kooser

Four decades of poetry―and a generous selection of new work―make up this extraordinary collection by Pulitzer Prize winner Ted Kooser. Firmly rooted in the landscapes of the Midwest, Kooser''s poetry succeeds in finding the emotional resonances within the ordinary. Kooser''s language of quiet intensity trains itself on the intricacies of human relationships, as well as the animals and objects that make up our days. As Poetry magazine said of his work, "Kooser documents the dignities, habits, and small griefs of daily life, our hunger for connection, our struggle to find balance."

Ted Kooser lives and writes on 62 acres of wooded hills and pasture in rural Nebraska with his wife, Kathleen Rutledge, a retired editor of the Lincoln Journal Star. None of their property is farmed and is instead left to an abundance of wildlife. For many years Kooser worked at a desk in the life insurance business, retired at 60, and for fifteen years taught poetry writing in the graduate program of the University of Nebraska. He is the author of fifteen books of poetry, five volumes of nonfiction, five children''s picture books, and seventeen chapbooks and special editions. He served two terms as U.S. Poet Laureate and his 2004 collection of poems, Delights & Shadows, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. Prior to the publication of A Man with a Rake, his most recent collection of poems is Red Stilts, from Copper Canyon Press. More about his life, his work, and his many honors can be found at www.tedkooser.net.

The skies are hanging their freshly washed—and sweepingly illustrated—clouds out to dry in Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Ted Kooser’s celestial ode to an approaching rainstorm. One sky unpins damp sheets of cirrus. Another wads cirrocumulus into a basket woven of sunbeams. Still others carry away armloads of altocumulus and drag moth-eaten gray blankets of stratus past. At last, a colossal cumulonimbus sweeps in, squeezing out the light to herald . . . rain! What emerges is a sky like a great green laundry basket with a rainbow for a handle. Full of wit and brilliant linguistic surprises, this poetic romp by former United States Poet Laureate Ted Kooser is as playfully theatrical as it is evocative. Matt Myers’s dynamic artwork stages the weather with aplomb, capturing the distinct mood of each show-stopping sky and crafting a meteorological drama of epic proportions. Like a good, rousing rainstorm, Seven Skies All at Once calls eloquently on our senses, inviting us to pause and reflect on the ever-changing wonders all around.

Poetry Chapbook

The story of Ted Kooser''s mother''s family.

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.

Poetry at Round Top 2010 chapbook anthology. Poets include Ted Kooser, Harryette Mullen, William Wenthe, Peggy Shumaker, Naomi Shihab Nye, Hoa Nguyen, Philip Pardi, Jacqueline Kolosov, and Brigit Pegeen Kelly. Permissions to reprint granted by poets'' individual original presses.