Ted Kooser is an icon of American Poetry.
In the early 1970’s, I met Ted several times as he travelled the Wisconsin poetry reading circuit, while he was at the Iowa Writers Workshop. Truly, a gracious spirit.
In the middle 1990’s while working onWall Street, I started writing a piece about poetry and a business career for some American poets, that I was going to submit to the Wall Street Journal (they didn’t publish it).
At the time, Ted was a Vice President at Lincoln Bankers Insurance Company, so I decided to contact him for an interview on the subject. Unsurprisingly, he was still a gentleman.
Overall, we talked three separate times before I completed my piece. When I suggested that I wanted him to approve his quotes and also get his publisher’s approval. He said that I should just publish it, because it would take too long to get his publisher’s approval.
All told, Ted has published over 20 collections of poetry, won a Pulitzer Prize, and was the Poet Laureate of America, 2004-2006.
Ultimately, he has practiced a humble, sensitive, and understandable style of American poetry. I have every book he ever published and I recommend all or any of them.