Former U.S. poet laureate, Pulitzer Prize-winner and master storyteller Ted Kooser will talk about growing up in Iowa at Wartburg College Tuesday, Feb. 21.
Kooser, who was born and raised in Ames and earned his bachelor’s degree at Iowa State University, will speak at the Michaelson, Briner, and Kildahl Literary Symposium in McCaskey Lyceum, 11:30 a.m. -12:30 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.
Kooser will read from “Delights & Shadows,” which won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for poetry, and his non-fiction book, “Lights on a Ground of Darkness,” which is about the Guttenberg roots of his mother’s family.
Kooser served as the U.S. Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004 to 2006, the first poet from a Plains state so honored. He writes — often humorously — about his roots. His poetry is frequently described as “accessible,” and he has drawn standing-room-only crowds on college campuses across the nation.
The Minneapolis Tribune calls him a poet who “will one day rank alongside of Edgar Lee Masters, Robert Frost, and William Carlos Williams.”
“Many of his poems involve closely observed Midwestern scenes,” critic David Mason wrote in The Weekly Standard. “(He) is as distinctive a voice as any now at work, a master of metaphor and the short poem.”
Kooser, a retired insurance executive, has been a professor at the University of Nebraska, where he earned his master’s degree. He has received honorary doctorates from the University of Nebraska, South Dakota State University and the State University of New York at Binghamton.
Kooser will hold a book signing that is open to the public from 5 to 6:30 p.m. Monday, Feb. 20, in the Hagemann Castle Room of Saemann Student Center. His books “Delights & Shadows,” “Lights on a Ground of Darkness,” “Valentines,” and “Bag in the Wind,” an illustrated book for children grades 4-6, will be available for purchase. He also will speak to several Wartburg classes.
Some of his poems and videos from his talks are available at www.tedkooser.net.