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Ted Kooser to read at KU April 12

September 2, 2010

Former U.S. poet laureate  and Pulitzer Prize winner Ted Kooser will read from his works at a University of Kansas Libraries event on Monday, April 12. The reading, celebrating National Poetry Month, will be held at the Oread Inn at 7 p.m.; a special meet-and-greet reception for Vosper Society members will precede the reading at 5:30 p.m.

Kooser served as the U. S. Poet Laureate from 2004-2006, and his book “Delights & Shadows” won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for poetry. His writing is known for its clarity, precision and accessibility, and is often inspired by the people and landscape of the American Midwest. His memoir “Lights on a Ground of Darkness” was named one of the top 20 indie publications of fall 2009 by Publishers Weekly. Kooser makes his home in Nebraska, where he is a Presidential Professor of English at The University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Two Poems by Ted Kooser

Screech Owl

All night each reedy whinny
from a bird no bigger than a heart
flies out of a tall black pine
and, in a breath, is taken away
by the stars. Yet, with small hope
from the center of darkness,
it calls out again and again.

Delights & Shadows, Copper Canyon Press

In the Corners of Fields

Something is calling to me
from the corners of fields,
where the leftover fence wire
suns its loose coils, and stones
thrown out of the furrow
sleep in warm litters;
where the gray faces
of old No Hunting signs
mutter into the wind,
and dry horse tanks
spout fountains of sunflowers;
where a moth
flutters in from the pasture,
harried by sparrows,
and alights on a post,
so sure of its life
that it peacefully opens its wings.

Flying at Night: Poems 1965-1985, University of Pittsburgh Press