Life and Poetry of Ted Kooser

Like a flash of lightning it came to hima"the unathletic high school student Ted Kooser saw a future as a famous poet that promised everything: glory immortality a bohemian lifestyle (no more doing dishes no more cleaning his room) and particularly important to the lonely teenager girls! Unlike most kids with a sudden ambition Kooser winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and thirteenth poet laureate of the United States made good on his dream. But glory was a long time coming and along the way Kooser lived the life that has made his poetry what it is as deeply grounded in family work and the natural world as it is attuned to the nuances of language.Just as so much of Koosera's own writing weaves geography history and family stories into its measures so does this first critical biography consider the poeta's work and life together: his upbringing in Iowa his studies in Nebraska with poet Karl Shapiro as mentor his career in insurance his family life his bout with cancer and always his poetry. Combining a fine appreciation of Koosera's work and life this book finally provides a fuller and more complex picture of a writer who perhaps more than any other has brought the Great Plains and the Midwest lived large and small into the poetry of our day.