Kooser, Ted (1939-…), an American poet, was appointed poet laureate of the United States for 2004-2006. Kooser won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for poetry for his collection Delights & Shadows (2004).
Kooser has lived his entire life in the Great Plains region of the United States. His poetry describes the landscape and rural and small-town culture of that area, especially eastern Nebraska. Kooser writes poetry accessible to the average reader, often concentrating on the ordinary details and habits of everyday life. Although his poetry is rooted in the Great Plains, critics have praised his work for its perceptive exploration of universal themes, such as death and the importance of friendship and family.
Kooser’s first collection of poems was Official Entry Blank (1969). His other poetry collections include Grass County (1971), Not Coming to Be Barked At (1976), One World at a Time (1985), Weather Central (1994), Winter Morning Walks: One Hundred Postcards to Jim Harrison (2000), Flying at Night: Poems 1965-1985 (2005), Valentines (2008), and Kindest Regards: New and Selected Poems (2018). He also co-wrote Braided Creek: A Conversation in Poetry (2003) with his friend Jim Harrison, an American poet and novelist.
Kooser’s The Blizzard Voices (1986) is a dramatized story in verse about a destructive blizzard that struck the Nebraska Territory in 1888. Local Wonders: Seasons in the Bohemian Alps (2002) is Kooser’s eloquent prose memoir of his life in the small Nebraska town of Garland. Kooser has also written literary criticism and fiction, including the children’s books Bag in the Wind (2010) and The Bell in the Bridge (2016). He and the American poet Connie Wanek wrote the children’s book Marshmallow Clouds: Two Poets at Play Among Figures of Speech (2022).
Theodore John Kooser was born on April 25, 1939, in Ames, Iowa. He received a B.S. degree from Iowa State University in 1962 and an M.A. degree from the University of Nebraska in 1968. Kooser was an insurance company executive from the 1970’s to the late 1990’s in Lincoln, Nebraska. He is a visiting professor and teaches poetry and creative writing at the University of Nebraska.
