Red Stilts

September 1, 2020

Noteworthy for celebrating life's everyday details, particularly regarding America's heartlands, Pulitzer Prize winner and two-time U.S. poet laureate Kooser returns (after Kindest Regards) with his keen perceptual skills intact. These poems are deceptively simple, with Kooser often volunteering something like "I [was] only happening" past, then pointedly capturing the beauty or significance of a moment. A seemingly snow-filled porch and empty cat's dish signifies the loss of a friend; watching a stranger helping some stranded motorists inspires a feeling of "something common between us, among us, / around us, within us." And the ordinary can turn magical, as when keyboard-like garbage-truck snow tracks inspire a concert led by a dried-up leaf. Octogenarian Kooser suggestively conjures wintry landscapes and sober graveyard scenes, particularly in the book's first half, but he doesn't pump nostalgia. Instead, there's a oneness with life and the poignancy of "a very old woman/..., peering down/ into the past in the bowl of a [tarnished] spoon." And by the end, a gorgeous prairie spring arrives. VERDICT Quiet satisfaction for a wide range of readers.

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