Ted Kooser is a poet and essayist, a professor of English at The University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and most recently, The United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. His writing is known for its clarity, precision and accessibility. He worked for many years in the life insurance business, retiring in 1999 as a vice president. He and his wife, Kathleen Rutledge, editor of The Lincoln Journal Star, live on an acreage near the village of Garland, Nebraska. He has a son, Jeff, and a granddaughter, Margaret.

Librarian of Congress James H. Billington said, on appointing Kooser as Laureate, “Ted Kooser is a major poetic voice for rural and small town America and the first Poet Laureate chosen from the Great Plains. His verse reaches beyond his native region to touch on universal themes in accessible ways.”

The author of ten collections of poetry, most recently Delights & Shadows (2004), Kooser was born in Ames, Iowa, in 1939. He earned his bachelor’s degree at Iowa State University in 1962 and his master’s degree at the University of Nebraska in 1968.

Kooser’s other collections of poetry include Sure Signs (1980), which received the Society of Midland Authors Prize for the best book of poetry by a midwestern writer published in that year; One World at a Time (1985); Weather Central (1994); and Winter Morning Walks: One Hundred Postcards to Jim Harrison (2000), winner of the 2001 Nebraska Book Award for Poetry. A book of his essays, Local Wonders: Seasons in the Bohemian Alps (2002), won the Nebraska Book Award for Nonfiction in 2003. The book was also chosen as the Best Book Written by a Midwestern Writer for 2002 by Friends of American Writers, and it won the Gold Award for Autobiography in ForeWord Magazines Book of the Year Awards.

Kooser is also the author, with his longtime friend Jim Harrison, of Braided Creek: A Conversation in Poetry (2003), for which the two poets received the 2003 Award for Poetry from the Society of Midland Authors.

Among Kooser’s other awards and honors are two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, the Pushcart Prize, the Stanley Kunitz Prize, the James Boatwright Prize and a Merit Award from the Nebraska Arts Council. He is a visiting professor in the English department of the University of Nebraska at Lincoln.

More information about Ted Kooser can be found at http://www.tedkooser.com.
Additional information about the United States Library of Congress can be found at http://www.loc.gov/poetry/.
 

Lily: How does one become the Poet Laureate of the United States and what are the major responsibilities of the job?

TK: The Poet Laureate is chosen by the Librarian of Congress. There are a few responsibilities including choosing a couple of poets to receive fellowships, introducing some readings at the Library, doing a reading, giving a lecture. A number of the laureates in the past twenty years have undertaken substantial projects on their own initiative.

Lily: What projects have you been working on as Poet Laureate?

TK:  I will soon have a weekly newspaper column offered free to any newspaper that wishes to use it. It is to be called American Life in Poetry. We are currently getting the website designed, from which the columns can be downloaded. I hope to reach a lot of weekly and smaller papers, but larger papers would also be welcome. Each column will feature a short poem by an American poet with a few words of introduction.

Lily: What has been the most rewarding thing you’ve experienced since your appointment to the position? 

TK: I greatly enjoyed attending the annual meeting of the National Council of Teachers of English. They were happy to have me there and I got to talk to lots of teachers about the issues of poetry instruction.

Lily: Do you think that the time frame that you’ve been given in the position will be enough to accomplish all you want to do as Poet Laureate?

TK: I have been surprised by how quickly the months are passing. I have been very busy with travel and correspondence. I will be able to get my newspaper column done, and handle the regular responsibilities, but the year will pass like a breeze.

Lily: Librarian of Congress, James H. Billington, has described you as “a major poetic voice for rural and small town America.”  What sort of responsibilities does one feel when they become a major voice for a specific group of people?  Does this sort of statement impact the way you approach your work?

TK: If I began to think of myself as a major voice or as a spokesperson for a lot of people I think I'd be paralyzed with fear. I am just going to be myself and see how that works out.

Lily: Has the appointment lived up to its reputation - do you "feel" like a Poet Laureate or has the experience been rather surreal?

TK: It has seemed much like a dream from which I may suddenly awaken, like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz.

Lily: Did you always know you wanted to be a writer?  Can you describe the point in your life when you realized that you had gone from “wanting to be a writer” to actually being one?

TK: I have a new book just out, The Poetry Home Repair Manual, and in it I talk about this. A lot of the impetus for being a poet came from a desire to have something special to offer young women. If more male poets were honest about this, we'd find that a lot of them felt this way.

Lily: During your lengthy career in the insurance field, did you ever think of giving it all up to be a full time writer?  What kept you committed to writing through those years? 

TK: I was always too practical for that. I knew that one couldn't make a living as a poet. As to my commitment, I wrote to keep myself from being completely absorbed into my insurance work. It was a way of fighting against being forever identified as a clerk at a desk. There is nothing wrong with being a clerk at a desk but I wanted to be different from that.

Lily: How do you think your rural background has shaped the way you write?  How different of a writer do you think you’d be if you had been born and raised in New York City?

TK:  Most of us write about what we know and what we see about us. If I'd grown up in New York City I'd probably be writing poems about city life.

Lily: What is your favorite part of small town life? What is your favorite small town memory?

TK: I like the way in which small communities unite around problems or troubled people. I had an uncle who was badly disabled from cerebral palsy and the whole community saw to his well being.

Lily: How hard is it to become a recognized poet while living far away from the big city poetry scene?

TK: I don't think I've been judged by any other standards than the quality of my poetry. I have published in some prestigious magazines, not based upon where I'd sent the poems from but upon their appeal to an editor.

Lily: In your opinion, what is the best poem you’ve ever written, and why?

TK:  It's always the most recent one I've written, and my enthusiasm lasts about two hours before I see the poem beginning to shrivel up before my eyes.

Lily: Finish this sentence: “In order to write a good poem, the poet must find a way to...”

TK: Read as much poetry as he or she can.

Lily: What is the purpose of poetry?  Why write it?  Why read it?

TK: It's hard to answer a question like that without seeming to make a pronouncement. Poems are records of experience, of discoveries, and we write to share those discoveries. Readers read to participate in those discoveries.

Lily: What is a line from someone else's poem that you wish you’d written?

TK: It's a line in a Kris Kristofferson song, Maybe I'll never believe in forever again.

Lily: Besides your Poet Laureate responsibilities and your own writing, what do you like to do?  What would a perfect day consist of for you?

TK: A perfect day would begin with a few hours of reading and writing, followed by a walk in the woods with my dogs, then perhaps a few hours in my painting studio.

Lily: What are your plans after your time as Poet Laureate is finished?  Do you ever fear that this time in your life will be a tough act to follow, that there's no greater accomplishment left to obtain as a poet?

TK: I will go back to teaching, which I love, and continue to write and paint and try to take care of myself. I have never been ambitious and am not worried about trying to attain anything.

Lily: What advice would you give to aspiring writers?

TK: Read as much as you can. Read fifty or a hundred poems by others for every one you try to write of your own.