Delights & Shadows

May 1, 2004
Retired life insurance executive Ted Kooser is better known as the author of Sure Signs and nine other books of poems, as well as of the recent memoir Local Wonders: Seasons in the Bohemia Alps than for policies sold. Divided into four sections, these 59 poems take us from time "Walking on Tiptoe" and "At the Cancer Clinic" to "A Jar of Buttons," "A Box of Pastels" and "A Glimpse of the Eternal": "Just now,/ a sparrow lighted/ on a pine bough/ right outside/ my bedroom window/ and a puff/ of yellow pollen/ flew away."

February 15, 2004
"There are days when the fear of death/ is as ubiquitous as light. It illuminates/ everything." Kooser's world is indeed illuminated, though more by an awareness of mortality and the importance of every moment. Here it illuminates a ladybug beetle but elsewhere shirts and slacks, "a bank of threatening clouds/ that hang from a pipe between two ladders" at a yard sale, the small town set in an abandoned mini golf course or simply a quartz pebble he notices by the toe of his boot. "I held it to the light/ and could almost see through it/ into the grand explanation." Kooser's ninth collection of poems (e.g., Local Wonders) reflects the simple and remarkable things of everyday life. That he often sees things we do not would be delight enough, but more amazing is exactly what he sees. Nothing escapes him; everything is illuminated. There is much to celebrate in these small-town poems about small-town people and a reminder to all of us how America's voice and warm wisdom resonate from the middle. Highly recommended.-Louis McKee, Painted Bride Arts Ctr., Philadelphia

Copyright 2004 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 1, 2004
Like Kentucky's Wendell Berry, Kooser is a poet of place. But just as Kooser's eastern Nebraska is more modestly impressive than Berry's lush, riverine Kentucky, Kooser's poetry is more restrained than Berry's. Kooser is less big-C culturally concerned, less anxious about the destiny of nation and world. Kooser carries religion far more lightly; he envisions faith passing as casually "from door to door" as a pair of plaster or plastic "Praying Hands" en route to "every thrift shop in America." Having survived a major health crisis, Kooser is warier of death; in "Surviving" he writes of "days when the fear of death / is as ubiquitous as light," extending even to the ladybird beetle, paralyzed when "the fear of death, so attentive / to everything living, comes near." Though he focuses as often as Berry on memories, Kooser is less historically and more personally conscious in his poems of recollection. And Berry has come up with no finer metaphor than that of Kooser's "Memory," in which recall is a benignly ruthless tornado.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2004, American Library Association.)