Ted Kooser | Published Works

Published Works

Ted Kooser has published a number of books, including poetry, nonfiction, and children's literature.

Poetry | Children's Books | Nonfiction

Poetry Books

Book Cover	Title	Date	Description/Review	Links
	Cotton Candy: Poems Dipped Out of the Air	2022	“There is much to be admired in Kooser's improvisational approach to composition.” — Publishers Weekly “That Kooser often sees things we do not would be delight enough, but more amazing is exactly what he sees. Nothing escapes him. Everything is illuminated.” — Library Journal	Buy from publisher
	Red Stilts	2020	“At a time when so many of us must dwell in virtual worlds, before a screen, Red Stilts offers us over and over the wonders of everyday life rendered with precision and care. Kooser’s poems, so like the simplest of prayers themselves, remind me of what Simone Weil once wrote: ‘Absolutely unmixed attention is prayer.’ It’s impossible not to relish the ‘unmixed attention’ given in each of these quietly sublime poems, which place us effortlessly back into the present moment.” — The Christian Century	Buy from Publisher
	Kindest Regards	2018	Chosen by Library Journal as one of the five best poetry picks for 2018, Kindest Regards spans nearly five decades, featuring more than 50 pages of new writing and generous selections from 11 previous books. “As Kooser records everyday pleasures and griefs, he remembers those he will never see again and underscores the deep need we all have for connection, moments of respite and the abiding sense that our ordinary moments matter.” — Poetry Magazine	Buy from Publisher
	Splitting an Order	2007	“Kooser writes of elderly men in waiting rooms, of an aged couple splitting a roast beef sandwich, of a blind man who has fallen in the street, of the old people around us we never really see until we are old, too... For all their recurrent wistfulness, though, Kooser’s poems are somehow never depressing; they convey instead a strange wonder at the coming of age and a stoic acceptance of diminution.” — The Washington Post	Buy from Publisher
	Valentines	2007	Valentines collects Kooser’s twenty-two years of Valentine’s Day poems, complemented with illustrations by Robert Hanna and a new poem appearing for the first time.	Buy from Publisher
	Flying at Night	2005	Flying at Night is a new compilation from University of Pittsburg Press that will include poems from Sure Signs and One World at a Time.	Buy from Publisher Excerpt 1: Flying at Night
	Delights and Shadows	2004	“For more than thirty years Ted Kooser has written poems that deftly bring dissimilar things into telling unities. Throughout a long and distinguished writing career he has worked toward clarity and accessibility, making a poetry as fresh and spontaneous as a good watercolor. A gyroscope balanced between a child's hands, a jar of buttons that recalls generations of women, and a bird briefly witnessed outside a window — each reveals the remarkable within an otherwise ordinary world.” — Poetry Daily	Buy from Publisher Excerpt 1 : At the Cancer... Excerpt 2 : Father Excerpt 3 : Skater Excerpt 4 : Tattoo
	Braided Creek	2003	“There are poems on the natural world, aging, dying, friendship, love and eros. There is abundant humor. ... There also is distilled wisdom.” — Houston Chronicle	Buy from Publisher
	Winter Morning Walks, 100 Postcards to Jim Harrison	2000	This is a compilation of short imagistic poems that Ted sent as postcards to his friend, Jim Harrison, while Kooser was recovering from cancer treatment.	Buy from Publisher
	Weather Central	1994	“Kooser's virtues are those traditionally ascribed to the Midwest: plainspokenness, modesty, common sense. He sits on his porch, uninterested in academic cant or the fashions of poetic schools, and takes in the world around, praising its quiet beauty....Kooser has always been an archeologist of sorts. An abandoned schoolhouse, a deserted forge, an old stoneware crock — all set him wondering, trying to reconstruct the lives of those who used them. Even in his earliest published poems, the elegiac note came naturally to Kooser, both celebration and lament for a way of life that was disappearing as farm families moved to the city.” — The Bloomsbury Review	Buy from Publisher
	The Blizzard Voices	1986	A dramatized poetic narrative of the devastation unleashed on Nebraska Territory by the great blizzard of January 12, 1888. Drawn from the reminiscences of the survivors: the men and women who were teaching school, working the land, tending the house... when the storm arrived and changed their lives forever. Illustrated with twelve line drawings by Tom Pohrt.	Buy from Publisher
	One World at a Time	1985	In the closing poem of this new collection, a spider brushes globes of dew from her web, “one world at a time.” Since Ted Kooser's poems first began to appear in print, some twenty years ago, they have moved, as he has said, “from job to job, from love to love,” with great patience and care, as if each poem were a miniature world that needed completion before being left to stand alone.	(Out of Print)
	Sure Signs	1980	“I found it impossible to put Sure Signs down until I had finished the entire book. It was like sitting next to a box of chocolates before dinner...a collection alternately delightful and mysterious.” — Dana Gioia, The Hudson Review	Buy from Publisher Excerpt 1 : Carrie
	Not Coming to be Barked At	1976	Kooser's third full-sized collection of poems. Many of these were collected into SURE SIGNS in 1980.	(Out of Print)
	A Local Habitation & a Name	1974	This was the first of Kooser's books to receive national recognition, being favorably reviewed in Saturday Review and elsewhere.	(Out of Print)
	Official Entry Blank	1969	This is Kooser's first book of poems, published when he was 30, by the University of Nebraska Press.	(Out of Print)

Children's Books

Book Cover	Title	Date	Description/Review	Links
	Marshmallow Clouds: Two Poets at Play among Figures of Speech	2022	A freewheeling romp through the world of imagery and metaphor, this quietly startling collection of thirty poems, framed by the four elements, is about art and reality, fact and fancy. Celebrated poets Ted Kooser and Connie Wanek, along with illustrator Richard Jones, explore figures of speech in a spirited and magical way—and invite our imaginations out to play. Winner of the 2023 CLiPPA.	Buy from publisher
	Mr. Posey's New Glasses	2019	Mr. Posey is feeling gloomy. Everything seems dull. Maybe he needs new glasses? Perhaps a trip to the Cheer Up Thrift Shop with his energetic young neighbor, Andy, will help. In a charming tale of an elderly man and his obliging young friend, former poet laureate Ted Kooser and newcomer Daniel Duncan invite us to look at the world with fresh eyes.	Buy from Publisher
	The Bell in the Bridge	2016	“This warm, golden-tinged story from the duo behind Bag in the Wind (2010) moves slowly through a summer vacation as Charlie, staying with his grandparents for two weeks, passes the time by exploring outside ... Root’s watercolor and gouache landscapes reveal beauty in the woods and water that surround Charlie’s grandparents’ house, and he and Kooser succeed in making them grow as dear to readers as they do to Charlie.” — Publishers Weekly	Buy from Publisher
	House Held Up by Trees	2012	From Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Ted Kooser and rising talent Jon Klassen comes a poignant tale of loss, change, and nature's quiet triumph. At once wistful and exhilarating, this lovely, lyrical story evokes the inexorable passage of time — and the awe-inspiring power of nature to lift us up.	Buy from Publisher
	Bag in the Wind	2010	One cold morning in early spring, a bulldozer pushes a pile of garbage around a landfill and uncovers an empty plastic bag — a perfectly good bag, the color of the skin of a yellow onion, with two holes for handles — that someone has thrown away. Just then, a puff of wind lifts the rolling, flapping bag over a chain-link fence and into the lives of several townsfolk — a can-collecting girl, a homeless man, a store owner — not that all of them notice. Renowned poet Ted Kooser fashions an understated yet compassionate world full of happenstance and connection, neglect and care, all perfectly expressed in Barry Root’s tender illustrations.	Buy from Publisher

Nonfiction Books

Book Cover	Title	Date	Description/Review	Links
	The Wheeling Year: A Poet's Field Book	2014	“[Kooser’s] poems and this book of prose have arrived at just the right time, when we all need the reminder to lay down our phones, tablets and laptops–whatever keeps us from looking out the window or meeting the eyes of a passerby–and notice the actual world.” —James Crews, Basalt	Buy from Publisher
	Lights on a Ground of Darkness: An Evocation of a Place and Time	2009	“It's a subject ripe for sentimentality -- a middle-aged man considers the idyllic movements of his childhood, in a small town in the Midwest at midcentury. Yet "Lights on a Ground of Darkness" (Bison Books/University of Nebraska Press: 60 pp., $10.95 paper), former U.S. poet laureate Ted Kooser's piercing look back at his mother's family, is anything but romanticized. Rather, written in a prose as spare as a winter sunset, it is an elegy, not just for Kooser's forebears but for all of us.” — David L. Ulin, LA Times	Buy from Publisher
	Writing Brave and Free: Encouraging Words for People Who Want to Start Writing (with Steve Cox)	2006	Sometimes setting pen to paper requires bravery, and writing well means breaking free of the rules learned in school. Liberating and emboldening the beginning writer are the goals of Ted Kooser and Steve Cox in this spirited book of practical wisdom that brings to bear decades of invaluable experience in writing, teaching, editing, and publishing.	Buy from Publisher
	The Poetry Home Repair Manual	2005	Much more than a guidebook to making and revising poems, this manual has all the comforts and merits of a long and enlightening conversation with a wise and patient old friend—a friend who is willing to share everything he’s learned about the art he’s spent a lifetime learning to execute so well.	Buy from Publisher
	Local Wonders, Seasons in the Bohemian Alps	2002	“This is a heartfelt, plainspoken book about slowing down and appreciating the world around you.” — Janet Maslin, CBS Sunday Morning	Excerpts Buy from Publisher