Ted Kooser, Poet Laureate

A “loyal reader” asks for my opinion on Ted Kooser, our new Poet Laureate.

The Poet Laureateship is a more or less flexible position – the PL is chosen by the Librarian of Congress and serves a year long October to May term. The PL hosts a few readings, collects a modest stipend, and is generally tasked with “promoting” poetry to America at large. Some of the more effective PLs (in terms of their outreach function) like Robert Pinsky and Billy Collins serve more than one term. There's no correlation between the "kind" of poetry a PL writes and how effective they are. For example, Collins and Pinsky both served three terms - and no one would ever confuse their poems. Personally, I prefer the structure of the American position to the “serve for life” English Poet Laureateship.

Kooser’s one of those Iowa/Nebraska guys. You’d probably call him a “regional poet.” He’s never won a major award (which may be to his credit), nor has he garnered any of the plum positions (say, a chancellorship at the Academy of American Poets.) He has gotten a couple of NEA grants and, I think, a Pushcart. He’s fairly well published periodically and has 10 or so books, including a “New and Selected” which is now a days becoming the kind of high water mark for poets (in terms of book publication).

His poems (well, the ones I’ve read at any rate – which certainly aren’t any great number) tend to be shortish, first-person, quasi-lyrical, somewhat didactic. They’re of very modest scope, and always seem to avoid exploring any of the implications they might open. His subjects are usually contemporary American ones – suburban, day to day stuff, set in somewhere in the Great Plains, nothing you couldn’t find if you walked around town. His strongest assets as a poet are probably his eye for detail, and his unhurriedness. If he were a painter, he’d do landscapes, moderately pastoral, perhaps a grim element for color. He’s got a nice one on Garrison Nebraska. This might be Kooser at his best. As you can guess, he’s not a poet who greatly impresses me from a technical/craft standpoint, nor from a philosophical one, nor from an emotional one.

But that’s not to say he’s bad. He’s a very ‘safe’ middle of the road poet, very accessible (which I think is an often overlooked virute) which could make him an excellent choice for PL.

Also, I’ve never heard him read. That makes a huge difference. Of the previous PL’s, I’ve met Dove, Kumin, Pinsky, Kunitz and Collins. Dove won me over with her reading, whereas Pinsky confirmed all the suspicions I had about him.

I’ll pop in when I’m in DC, say "hi," attend a reading and let you know what I think of Kooser.

Comments

[EPG]

The British Laureateship has recently (i.e. as of Andrew Motion) changed from life to a ten-year stint. I suspect that worse, even, than serving life, is the fact that the British Laureate is expected to write commemorative poems for occasions like the Queen's birthday, the duchess's wedding, and the crown prince's first blowjob. Yet again, you may congratulate yourselves on being a republic (er, kind of).

[Scoplaw]

LOL! Well, it's good to know there are some limits on forward Motion in the Empire. Or is it a former Empire now? Here, they keep telling us we're "a Democracy" despite all evidence to the contrary. I couldn't imagine if our PLs had to address issues of state. . .far too many significant blowjobs over here for that, I think.

Motion kind of grew on me, I'll admit - he seems charmingly out of his depth, which lends his efforts and foibles a kind of punkish sincertiy, even the lawsuit was funny.

Last time around I was hoping for Edwin Morgan to be tapped as the British PL - that would have been a risky move though:

GLASGOW 15 JUNE 1990
Nosing greyly up the Clyde on a calm summer evening
a frigate and its tug make a faint skein of ripples
and are reflected
(like trees on the bank and clouds above)
in lazy estuary pewter.
Unlazily, a man with an air-gun
has fired at HMS Plymouth to give her
a Scottish welcome; on the bridge
a figure clutches his stomach. The frigate,
having survived four bombs in the Falklands,
finds out not everyone loved that war.