I first encountered him years ago, when I was a college student. He gave a reading on our campus, and I attended all of the poetry readings, so of course I went to his. I fell madly in love with every poet who visited (for at least 15 or 20 minutes ... love's bloom fades quickly, and I was fickle.) I had critique meetings with the poets, obtained signed books, and hung on every word they deigned to share with a lowly student such as I.
I left college, eventually married, had children and then somewhere along the way, in a fit of decluttering frenzy (oh, yes, all of you moms know just what I mean) I gave away a lot of those books, including the ones I owned by Ted Kooser. Enter our local arts center, and a recent reading in our town by the same Ted Kooser. Well, not exactly the same. He has since won a Pulitzer Prize and become Poet Laureate of the United States. I remember him as a cut above many of the poets (some 20 ... or is it 25?... years ago) but now, oh ... He's good. He's very good. He has the gift of elevating the ordinary to the sublime and I so thoroughly enjoyed being immersed in his world for an hour.
I took my children along for the reading , but a number of the poems sailed right past them.
"I didn't get most of it," my oldest told me, looking a little embarrassed. We usually love poetry around here, and I think she expected to enjoy more of it.
Too young, I told myself, too little time for me to chatter incessantly to them (as I normally do when I'm reading to them or teaching them something) about what it all meant. But, then, on the way home, I asked one more time, "Was there anything that really stuck with you? Anything that you really liked?" and my oldest said, "Well, you know, that poem about him holding Mary Cassatt's pastels was really cool."
Aaahh. Yes, it was.
You can see Ted Kooser's website here.
No comments:
Post a Comment