Focus on Nebraska authors: Ted Kooser

Ted Kooser served as the United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004–2006 and spoke in many venues around the state and the country during his tenure. I heard him speak at the Lied Center in Lincoln, NE and I recall him sharing that he had been compared to a hobbit. In fact, one of his speeches at Wartburg College in 2012 was entitled: American Hobbit or a Great Storyteller. In 2003, I helped select his title Local Wonders: Seasons in the Bohemian Alps, for the Nebraska Book Award for Nonfiction and as a One Book One Lincoln finalist in 2005. It was also selected as One Book One Nebraska for 2011. I have given copies of this book to many friends and family members. Here is my favorite quote from that book: If you can awaken inside the familiar and discover it new you need never leave home. Local wonders. I remember Ted sharing how he hoped to make poetry more ubiquitous and approachable to readers. If you reread the line above it may not register as poetry or at least, not the kind you dealt with in your high school or college literature classes. If your book group would like to branch out and read something besides a fiction or non-fiction selection, try Local Wonders. Have your readers pick their favorite parts and read them aloud at your discussion. You may do the very thing Kooser hoped he could accomplish and make a poetry lover out of you.