Ted Kooser

Personal life

Ted Kooser was born in Ames, Iowa, on April 25, 1939. Kooser is the author of twelve collections of poetry. He is former vice-president of Lincoln Bankers Life, an insurance company, and lives on land near the village of Garland, Nebraska. He wrote for an hour and a half before work every morning, and by the time he retired, Kooser had published seven books of poetry. Kooser owned a book publishing company, Windflower. Currently, Kooser teaches as a Presidential Professor in the English department of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Kooser has lived most of his life in the Midwest, preferring a more rural lifestyle, as he's chosen to live on an acreage in Nebraska. Kooser is married to Kathleen Rutledge, former editor of the Lincoln Journal Star. Ted and Kathleen have one son, Jeff. Jeff's two kids, Ted's grandchildren, are named Margaret and Penelope .

Education

Growing up, Kooser attended Ames Public Schools for elementary and middle school. When Kooser arrived at Ames High School, his interest diverted from the library and went to cars. He joined the Nightcrawlers Car Club and became secretary of the group in 1956. His motivation for writing in high school can be in part credited to one of his teachers, Mary McNally, who encouraged him to continue writing essays and poems that reflected his life. Kooser decided as a teenager that he was going to be a famous poet for three reasons: glory, immortally and to leave the bohemian lifestyle behind.

Kooser graduated from Ames High School with a class of 175 students and enrolled at Iowa State University, the alma mater of his uncles. He began writing short nonfiction stories for the Iowa State student literary magazine. He also joined the Iowa State Writer’s Round Table, which he credits for fine-tuning his writing skills; Iowa Senator Tom Harkin was also a part of the group. In 1961, Kooser moved to Marshalltown, Iowa, to student teach English classes. The following year he graduated with a BS in English education from Iowa State University and moved to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to live with his parents. He was offered a graduate readership opportunity at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and in 1963, he and his wife moved to Lincoln, Nebraska. After winning the Vreeland Award for poetry in 1964, he soon after lost his graduate readership from the University for his poor GPA. In 1967, he received his MA from Nebraska.

Career

On August 12, 2004, he was named Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry by the Librarian of Congress to serve a term from October 2004 through May 2005. In April 2005, Ted Kooser was appointed to serve a second term as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry. During that same week, Kooser received the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his book "Delights and Shadows" (Copper Canyon Press, 2004).

Kooser lives in Garland, Nebraska, and much of his work focuses on the Great Plains. Like Wallace Stevens, Kooser spent much of his working years as an executive in the insurance industry, although Kooser sardonically noted in an interview with the Washington Post that Stevens had far more time to write at work than he ever did.

He hosts the newspaper project "American Life in Poetry." He is also editor of the Ted Kooser Contemporary Poetry series published by the University of Nebraska Press.

Awards & Honors

Midwest Poetry Renaissance

Ted Kooser was part of the Midwest Poetry Renaissance in the 1960s and 1970s. The Midwest Poetry Renaissance drew on elements of Rural America through a five state swath of the Great Plains region. Poets of the midwest were respected among artists throughout the country due to being informed of larger societal forces, such as the distrust of a media-driven culture.

More small presses opened up in that time, and Midwestern poets began publishing more work. Warren Woessner regards the catalyst of the MPR to be the anthology Heartland in 1967. The movement began to develop after that point, along with the works of Ted and other poets such as Victor Contoski, Mak Vinz, David Steinglass, Gary Gildner, James Hazard, Greg Kuzma, Judith Minty, and Kathy Weigner (as well as many others) who exemplified the rural subject matter and conversational tone. Most of the poets were in their twenties or early thirties and published their first books.

Ted was in his late twenties and thirties during the decade the Midwest Poetry Renaissance occurred. He published his first book through the University of Nebraska Press at age 30, titled “Official Entry Blank.” Ted’s first full-length book was already out of print by the early 1970s, at which time he became more of a small press poet like many other poets in the Midwest. Ted continued to receive publication of individual poems within anthologies, and published several more books on small presses. He also began to edit The New Salt Creek Reader, which had six anthologies by 1974.

According to a Warren Woessner, a poet during the Midwest Poetry Renaissance, the movement ended in 1975 with the publication of Heartland II.

Poetic Style

Ted Kooser is known for his conversational style of poetry that is accessible to a nonliterary public. Critic Dana Gioia, in his book Can Poetry Matter?, describes Kooser’s style as “drawn from common speech, with subject matter common to the Midwest.” Kooser’s early and contemporary work involves both troubles for Midwesterners, and observations from everyday life. Recurring themes include love, family, place, and time, but he does not consider himself a regional poet.