[New-Poetry] Taking Kooser's measure

Sat Aug 26 11:04:30 EDT 2006

If we can leave Gioia out of it for a minute...

I find Kooser's work to be bracing in chunks. I wouldn't want a steady diet  
of it, nor of most poets I enjoy. I had a chance to hear him read last spring  
and came away with a new liking for his work. There's a scrupulousness of  
observation in his work that really picks my ears up. 

I like the militant modesty (great phrase, David) of his poems but do  
sometiems wish he would swing for the fences. Sometimes reading a poem of his is  
like watching a very good athlete go at half-speed. you keep hoping for a flash  
of something more.

Al

In a message dated 8/26/2006 10:52:26 AM Eastern Daylight Time,  
grahamd at ripon.edu writes:

I  recommend Dana Gioia's essay on Kooser published in his *Can Poetry 
Matter?*  collection.    

(Incidentally, to my mind, Gioia's best at this sort of thing--not  making 
broad-brush cultural pronouncements, but digging in on individual  authors.  His 
pieces on Kees, Kooser, Justice, and Stevens are the best  thing in his book, 
I'd say.)

Took me a good while to appreciate Kooser properly.  His poetry is  almost 
militantly modest.  There's never the slightest dash or dazzle,  but he's very 
good at a sort of quiet metaphoric reflectiveness and  descriptive accuracy.  

Gioia says it better than I can!

Here are a couple lyrics from *Sure Signs*, his selected poems, followed  by 
a newer piece--

Beer  Bottle

In the  burned-
out  highway
ditch the  throw-

away  beer
bottle  lands
standing  up

unbroken,
like a  cat
thrown  off

of a  roof
to kill  it,
landing  hard

and  dazzled
in the  sun,
right side  up;

sort of  a
miracle.
--------------

At the Bait  Stand

Part barn,  part boxcar, part of a chicken shed,
part leaking  water, part something dead,
part pop  machine, part gas pump, part a chair
leaned back  against a wall, and sleeping there,
part-owner  Herman Runner, mostly fat,
hip-waders,  undershirt, tattoos and hat.

--Ted  Kooser.  Sure Signs:  New & Selected Poems.   U  Pittsburgh.
 =============
Heat Lightning 

At the horizon, July in heavy boots
paces the hot floor of the darkness.
A bulb in a wobbly lamp jiggles.

Or is that you, my love, approaching
across the firefly hills, swinging
a sloshing pail of moonlight?

 --Ted Kooser.  Smartish Pace, 2005.

On Aug 26, 2006, at 5:39 AM, David Bircumshaw wrote:

Only opinion based on the only Kooser poem I  have seen: 

a drone.

Bored in the bar

Best

dave

----- Original Message ----- 
From:  _steve  moore_ (mailto:fssam6 at uaf.edu)  
To: _NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry  News &amp;Views_ 
(mailto:new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu)  
Sent: Friday, August 25, 2006 6:25  PM
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] old poem  made obsolete by current events

I have a personal grudge against Mr. Collins, so the  comparison of him with 
any poet puts the latter on a pedestal. Kooser's a  good poet, though I 
wouldn't jump in to putting him among the ranks of  poetic genius. He has a few 
poems that sock me in the stomach, but  overall, the jury is still out for me. I 
may be heading to Nebraska for my  PhD, so that may have an affect on my 
opinion in the future.  

On Aug 25, 2006, at 6:50 AM, TheOldMole wrote:

A little nervous about the notion that one  has to throw Billy Collins into 
the mix before one can evaluate Kooser.  But I agree that at his best, he 
creates visual images that  resonate.

----- Original Message ----- 
From:  _Anthony Lawrence_ (mailto:ajlawrence1 at bigpond.com)  
To: _NewPoetry: Contemporary  Poetry News &amp; Views_ 
(mailto:new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu)  
Sent: Friday, August 25, 2006  2:39 AM
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] old  poem made obsolete by current events

What's the attitude to Ted Kooser's work among this  group? I find the best 
of his poems have the ability  
to stop me in my tracks. His imagery can be astounding. I think  he leaves 
someone like Billy Collins
in a dustcloud.

On 25/08/2006, at 4:45 AM, _JforJames at aol.com_ (mailto:JforJames at aol.com)  
wrote:

Astronomers strip Pluto of its planet status  

_http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060824/sc_nm/science_planets_dc_5_ 
(http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060824/sc_nm/science_planets_dc_5) 

--
The 10th Planet

Every night they wheel out
the great siege gun of  Palomar
trying to bring down the walls of darkness
surrounding  a tenth planet.
Out beyond Neptune and the orbit of  Pluto
where the Sun's gravitational empire
begins to fray and  fall apart.
The tenth planet that might be
the foreshadowing  of what our world could become,
a denatured earth, clear-cut,  stripped
and left for dead as progress
grinds on into deserts  of sawdust and slag,
bonemeal and unarable sand. Or when
we  turn on each other, petty tyrants imposing
martial law, torturers  and detention camps,
the missiles and minarets, borders  closed
with sutures of barbwire. Remember
that at its height  as many as ten-thousand slaves
were sacrificed in a single year  to some Aztec sun-god.
But a reign of centuries can end in a  hundred days,
Cortez with his gold lust and upper-case  God
destroyed that civilization founded on carnage--
Comes now  the conquistador with horses and crosses,
the sword and  gunpowder, smallpox
and syphilis. Always religions go  awry,
creating god out of fear and the need to make  someone,
something, responsible for bad weather
or blindness,  for wars and total eclipses
of the sun. And when they find that  tenth planet,
its face in the little handmirror of the  universe
that rests at the base of the telescope,
it won't  tell us anything. A face marked
by craters and half-hidden in  shadow.
It won't look at us, it will turn away.

_______________________________________________
New-Poetry mailing list
_New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu_ (mailto:New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu) 
_http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry_ 
(http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry) 

____________________________________

_______________________________________________
New-Poetry  mailing list
_New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu_ (mailto:New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu) 
_http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry_ 
(http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry) 

_______________________________________________
New-Poetry mailing list
_New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu_ (mailto:New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu) 
_http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry_ 
(http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry) 

____________________________________

_______________________________________________
New-Poetry  mailing list
_New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu_ (mailto:New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu) 
http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry

_______________________________________________
New-Poetry mailing list
_New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu_ (mailto:New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu) 
_http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry_ 
(http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry) 

========================================== 
David  Graham 
_grahamd at ripon.edu_ (mailto:grahamd at ripon.edu)  
Home  Page: 
_http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html_ 
(http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html)  
Poetry  Library: 
_http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html_ 
(http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html)  
========================================== 

=

_______________________________________________
New-Poetry  mailing  list
New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/pipermail/new-poetry/attachments/20060826/de800cae/attachment.html