Tag: writing
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Ted Kooser’s “American Life in Poetry”: Column 474
American Life in Poetry: Column 474 BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE Let’s celebrate the first warm days of spring with a poem for mushroom hunters, this one by Amy Fleury, who lives in Louisiana. First Morel Up from wood rot, wrinkling up from duff and homely damps, spore-born and cauled like a meager […]
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“On Humpty Dumpty”
On Humpty Dumpty Tyrants of egg-headed ambiguity raise walls of anti-prose, well-trained indecipherable code down which readers will fall and fail like an egg shattered after a spectacular crash. A spectacle for sure, and yet no way to put them whole with horses or men. The impulse is to make the barrier too dense— an art of self-offense. […]
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Ted Kooser’s “American Life in Poetry”: Column 471
American Life in Poetry: Column 471 BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE (2004-2006) Despite having once been bitten by a rabid bat, and survived, much to the disappointment of my critics, I find bats fascinating, and Peggy Shumaker of Alaska has written a fine poem about them. I am especially fond of her perfect […]
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Ted Kooser’s “American Life in Poetry” Column 470
American Life in Poetry: Column 470 BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE 2004-2006 Considering that I’m a dog lover, I haven’t included nearly enough dog poems in this column. My own dog, Howard, now in his dotage, has never learned a trick of any kind, nor learned to behave, so I admire Karla Huston […]
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Ted Kooser’s “American Life in Poetry”: Column 469
American Life in Poetry: Column 469 BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE The love between parents can be wonderful and mysterious to their children. Robert Hedin, a Minnesota poet and the director of The Anderson Center at Tower View in Red Wing, does a fine job of capturing some of that wonder in this short […]
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A Weekly Poetry Column: Ted Kooser’s “American Life in Poetry”
(U.S. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser’s poetry column, American Life in Poetry, will appear regularly at The Afternoon Journal.– JK) ****************************** American Life in Poetry: Column 468 BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE Here’s another lovely poem to honor the caregivers among us. Amy Fleury lives and teaches in Louisiana. Ablution Because one must be naked […]
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U.S. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser’s Weekly Poetry Column
American Life in Poetry: Column 425 BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE If we haven’t done it ourselves, we’ve known people who have, it seems: taken a vacation mostly to photograph a vacation, not really looking at what’s there, but seeing everything through the viewfinder with the idea of looking at it when they get […]
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Skating into the new year
I took my daughter ice skating for the first time on the last day of 2013. I had not skated in twenty years. The skates were rented. The ice was man-made. It was warmer inside the colossal ice rink than it was outside. She felt the thrill and fear of sliding beyond her eight years on an […]
The Pacific 