Setting the Scene with Poetry: My Review of Delights and Shadows by Ted Kooser
What Goodreads Says
American author Ted Kooser is a master of metaphor, a poet who deftly connects disparate elements of the world and communicates with absolute precision. Critics call him a “haiku-like imagist” and his poems have been compared to Chekov’s short stories. In Delights and Shadows, Kooser draws inspiration from the overlooked details of daily life. Quotidian objects like a pegboard, creamed corn and a forgotten salesman’s trophy help reveal the remarkable in what before was a merely ordinary world.
“Kooser documents the dignities, habits and small griefs of daily life, our hunger for connection, our struggle to find balance.”-Poetry
Ted Kooser is the author of eight collections of poems and a prose memoir. He lives on a small farm in rural Nebraska.
My 5-Star Review
I met Pulitzer-Prize winning poet Ted Kooser years ago at a writers’ conference, where I attended one of his workshops and sat next to him during a book signing. When creating my own work, I always remember his advice to let a poem’s title set the scene. I enjoy reading his work, in which he practices what he preaches, and Delights and Shadows didn’t disappoint me.
The title sets the scene for this collection, which contains some delightful poems and others that cast shadows. In many of his poems, he appears to be an observer, reporting what he sees. Take, for example, “Tattoo,” in which an old man displays such a mark that indicates his past. Being a musician, I related to “A Rainy Morning,” in which Kooser compares a woman pushing herself in a wheelchair to someone playing the piano.
Some of his poems tell a story. In “Pearl,” Kooser talks about visiting his aunt to tell her that his mother passed away. In “beaded Purse,” an old man retrieves his dead daughter’s remains from a train station.
Then, there’s “Survival,” in which Kooser reflects on his fear of death. Delights and Shadows has something for every poetry lover and even those who aren’t fans.
Photo Courtesy of Tess Anderson Photography
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by Two Pentacles Publishing
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