In a state whose only boast is Warren Buffett, you can peer at small wonders, those most important things.
Nebraskan Ted Kooser, two-time U.S. poet laureate and Pulitzer Prize winner, peers closely. From such observations he weaves lean and discerning poems.
He’s the most important small-America voice since Robert Frost.
Kooser also writes award-winning prose. “Small Rooms of Time,” a wonderfully structured essay, appeared in “The Best American Essays 2005.” His “Local Wonders,” from two years before, clearly portrays southeastern Nebraska, often called “the Bohemian Alps.”
It was Kooser’s “Delights & Shadows” that deservedly won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 2004. From it, this four-line example:
A Winter Morning
A farmhouse window far back from the highway
Speaks to the darkness in a small, sure voice.
Against this stillness, only a kettle’s whisper,
And against the starry cold, one small blue ring of flame.
Kooser has championed poetry and teaches at the University of Nebraska. He recently joined Facebook and regularly shares new poems, some written that morning. He turns 82 on April 25.
Kooser deserves the Nobel Prize.
Love the video, especially. Thank you.