Ted Kooser
Ted Kooser is an American poet, born on April 25, 1939, in Ames, Iowa. He pursued higher education, earning a BS from Iowa State University and later an MA in English from the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. While initially working in the insurance industry, Kooser also made significant contributions to poetry, publishing his first collection, "Official Entry Blank," in 1969. His writing often reflects the landscape and experiences of the Great Plains, earning him critical acclaim, including the Pulitzer Prize for his collection "Delights and Shadows" in 2005.
Throughout his career, Kooser has published numerous poetry volumes and non-fiction works, receiving various awards such as the John Vreeland Award and two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships. He served as the U.S. Poet Laureate from 2004 to 2006 and founded the column "American Life in Poetry," which highlighted contemporary poets until its conclusion in 2022. Kooser's accessible yet profound poems have resonated with readers, and his legacy continues to influence the American literary landscape.
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Ted Kooser
Poet
- Born: April 25, 1939
- Place of Birth: Ames, Iowa
Biography
Poet Theodore J. Kooser was born on April 25, 1939, in Ames, Iowa, and grew up there, the son of Vera (Moser) and Theodore B. Kooser. He received a BS from Iowa State University in 1962. That same year, he married Diana Tressler; the couple had one son before divorcing in 1969. In 1977, he married Kathleen Rutledge, the editor of the Lincoln Journal Star.
After teaching high school in Iowa for a year, Kooser moved to Nebraska and worked for an insurance company while pursuing an MA in English from the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, eventually graduating in 1968. From 1967 to 1975, Kooser published and edited Salt Creek Reader. He remained in the insurance business while writing poetry and eventually retired as a vice president of the Lincoln Benefit Life Insurance Company in Nebraska.
Kooser has published several volumes of poetry, including his first collection, Official Entry Blank (1969). He has also edited The Windflower Home Almanac of Poetry (1980) and operates Windflower Press. His poetry collection Sure Signs won the Society for Midlands Authors Prize for the best book of poetry in 1980. A subsequent volume, Winter Morning Walks: One Hundred Postcards to Jim Harrison (2000), won the 2001 Nebraska Book Award for poetry, while a nonfiction book, Local Wonders: Seasons in the Bohemian Alps (2002), won the 2003 Nebraska Book Award for Nonfiction. Although Kooser does not consider himself a regionalist writer, much of his work has to do with his Great Plains environment, as seen in his collection Delights and Shadows (2004), which won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for poetry. Kooser’s other works in the 2000s include The Poetry Home Repair Manual (2005), Practical Advice for Beginning Poets (20060, the poetry collections Flying at Night: Poems 1965–1985 (2005) and Valentines (2008), and a work of nonfiction, Lights on a Ground of Darkness: An Evocation of Place and Time (2009).
In addition to the Pulitzer Prize for poetry, Kooser has won numerous other awards, including the John Vreeland Award for Creative Writing (1964), two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships in Poetry (in 1976 and 1984), the Stanley Kunitz Prize, and the Pushcart Prize. Poet and critic Dana Gioia wrote of Kooser that he “has written more perfect poems than any other poet of his generation.” In the summer of 2004, Kooser was appointed the thirteenth poet laureate of the United States. He served in that position until 2006.
In 2005, Kooser founded American Life in Poetry, a weekly syndicated newspaper column that featured contemporary American poets. Kooser retired from the column in 2020, and American Life in Poetry ceased operations in 2022.
Bibliography
Block, Melissa. “At Home with Poet Laureate Ted Kooser.” NPR, 19 Oct. 2005, www.npr.org/transcripts/4965544. Accessed 3 Oct. 2024.
"Discover Poems by Contemporary American Voices." American Life in Poetry, 2024, www.americanlifeinpoetry.org/about. Accessed 3 Oct. 2024.
Stillwell, Mary K. The Life and Poetry of Ted Kooser. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 2013. Print.
“Ted Kooser.” Poetry Foundation, 2024, hwww.poetryfoundation.org/poets/ted-kooser. Accessed 3 Oct. 2024.