{"id":517,"date":"2004-12-10T11:54:22","date_gmt":"2004-12-10T18:54:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/wp2\/uncategorized\/ted-kooser-poet-laureate-of-the-united-states\/"},"modified":"2010-04-11T14:35:09","modified_gmt":"2010-04-11T20:35:09","slug":"ted-kooser-poet-laureate-of-the-united-states","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/poetry\/ted-kooser-poet-laureate-of-the-united-states\/","title":{"rendered":"Ted Kooser, Poet Laureate of the United States"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a title=\"Poems by Ted Kooser\" href=\"http:\/\/literary.group.tripod.com\/id41.html\">Poems by Ted Kooser<\/a><\/p>\n<p>After Years<\/p>\n<p>Today, from a distance, I saw you<br \/>\nwalking away, and without a sound<br \/>\nthe glittering face of a glacier<br \/>\nslid into the sea. An ancient oak<br \/>\nfell in the Cumberlands, holding only<br \/>\na handful of leaves, and an old woman<br \/>\nscattering corn to her chickens looked up<br \/>\nfor an instant. At the other side<br \/>\nof the galaxy, a star thirty-five times<br \/>\nthe size of our own sun exploded<br \/>\nand vanished, leaving a small green spot<br \/>\non the astronomer&#8217;s retina<br \/>\nas he stood on the great open dome<br \/>\nof my heart with no one to tell.<\/p>\n<p>&#8212;<br \/>\nAmerica&#8217;s new poet laureate is Ted Kooser, a retired vice president of Lincoln Benefit Life insurance company in Nebraska [since August 12, 2004]&#8230;.<\/p>\n<p>Kooser, says former poet laureate Billy Collins, &#8220;is a poet who has deserved to be better known. This appointment will at least take care of that problem.&#8221; &#8230; Kooser, he adds, &#8220;is a thoroughly American poet laureate.&#8221; As for the poetry, Collins says it is clear and openhanded. &#8230;<\/p>\n<p>He replaces Louise Gluck as poet laureate.<\/p>\n<p>[many thanks to <a title=\"Albloggerque\" href=\"http:\/\/albloggerque.blogspot.com\/\">johnny_mango<\/a> for this.]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Poems by Ted Kooser After Years Today, from a distance, I saw you walking away, and without a sound the glittering face of a glacier slid into the sea. An ancient oak fell in the Cumberlands, holding only a handful of leaves, and an old woman scattering corn to her chickens looked up for an &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/poetry\/ted-kooser-poet-laureate-of-the-united-states\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Ted Kooser, Poet Laureate of the United States<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}