Ted Kooser
November 13, 2005
When I taught composition and literature classes in the past, I often used a Ted Kooser poem as a perfect example of imagery. The poem, Flying at Night, like most of Kooser’s poetry, speaks for itself.
Above us, stars. Beneath us, constellations.
Five billion miles away, a galaxy dies
like a snowflake falling on water. Below us,
some farmer, feeling the chill of that distant death,
snaps on his yard light, drawing his sheds and barn
back into the little system of his care.
All night, the cities, like shimmering novas,
tug with bright streets at lonely lights like his.
Kooser is poet laureate of the United States and winner of the most recent Pulitzer Prize in poetry. I also recently learned that he is Unitarian Universalist, which is my adopted faith. The magazine UU World has a really fine profile of Kooser. Kooser is not without his critics, and I think this profile does a nice job of answering them.
Posted by Bill Trippe at November 13, 2005 9:53 PM
