Poetry Friday

I stumbled accidentally onto this site, the Wessels Living History Farm, and felt like I'd found a delicious little secret on their podcast page. It includes a gathering of 15 videos -- Ted Kooser reading his poetry and giving us insight and sneak peeks into its making.

So This is Nebraska made me smile because there was a time that I, too, felt "snotty ... about Nebraska" and yet I have come to love this place as my home. I didn't move here until I was eleven years old (after living in Massachusetts, Washington, Alaska and Florida) and I still remember my 11-year-old shock at seeing pigs on TV during the evening news (it took me a long time to get used to seeing all those commercials peddling fertilizer.)

I still remember being dismayed at how small the towns can be and how wide open the spaces.

Kooser expresses it all so charmingly:

...
So this is Nebraska. A Sunday

afternoon; July. Driving along

with your hand out squeezing the air,

a meadowlark waiting on every post.

Behind a shelterbelt of cedars,

top-deep in hollyhocks, pollen and bees,

a pickup kicks its fenders off

and settles back to read the clouds.

You feel like that; you feel like letting

your tires go flat, like letting the mice

build a nest in your muffler, like being

no more than a truck in the weeds
...

Listen to the whole poem here.

Read more of my bloggish musing about Ted Kooser here, here, here and here.

Visit Ted Kooser's website here.

Poetry Friday is being hosted today by Christine, at The Simple and the Ordinary.