College Comp 2
Research Paper
Simply Masterful
“Most of us would prefer to look at cartoons in a magazine than read a poem," says Kooser. Poetry reflects life in a way that even big movies, cannot do. Kooser’s poems invite the reader to reflect on everyday items and to notice the small details and beauties of the world. He has a talent to express emotions in a way that the readers themselves will experience. He has been referred to as the master of the short metaphorical poem (Gioia). Kooser has lived in Iowa and Nebraska all of his life. His decision to remain in the Midwest has resulted in a limited audience for his work, but Gioia concludes by observing that Kooser “has written more perfect poems than any poet of his generation” (Gioia). “Kooser wants a poetry anyone can read without shame and understand without labor, because he thinks poetry has too long been in the hands of poets who go out of their way to make their poems difficult if not downright discouraging” (Logan). Although many authors poetry is extremely hard to understand, Ted Kooser’s well-constructed poetic language and simple eloquent style, conveys a heartfelt message toward subjects like loved ones, everyday items, and rural America that are effortless to comprehend throughout his poetry as a result of his tone, imagery, personification, and the uncomplicated metaphors.
Kooser has always been identified primarily as a poet. “While I was at work, I did everything that was required of me and kept getting promoted. But never did I aspire to be anything in the life insurance business” (Kooser). Kooser’s poems are typically brief, metaphors of ordinary people, items and everyday moments in life. Kooser was the winner of the 2005 Pulitzer Prize in poetry. He was named the first U.S. Poet Laureate from the Great Plains in August 2004 and was reappointed for another year. After receiving a call asking him to accept the U.S. Poet Laureate, Kooser admitted to the Lincoln Journal Star, “Never in my remotest imagination did [I believe] that something like this would happen to me.” Kooser was so excited by the news that as he backed out of his driveway he wasn’t paying attention and he knocked the side mirror off his pickup truck (Cryer).
Ted Kooser was born in Iowa in 1939 and now lives in a rural area of Nebraska. After flunking some of his courses in college, he took a management trainee job with an insurance company. He became the vice president of Bankers Life Insurance. At times he would show his secretary his poems. He would revise them when she didn’t understand them. Kooser said, "I never want to be thought of as pandering to a broad audience, but you can tweak a poem just slightly and broaden the audience very much. If you have a literary allusion, you limit the audience. Every choice requires a cost-benefit analysis." He felt that the structure of the insurance business actually stimulated his writing. He always would get up early in the morning and write for one and a half hours before work. Kooser would work so hard at making his poems clear that sometimes he would go through forty to fifty drafts (Lund).
In 1986 Kooser began sending postcards to about fifty female friends for valentines. Every year Kooser’s fame and audience grew. His mailing list grew as more fans asked to join. By 2007, his postcard list was 2,600. “In other words, don't think of "Valentines" as expensive red roses. This is a box of mixed chocolates, some of which are completely satisfying, while others boast just a sweet center” (Lund). Although some of Kooser’s valentines may not suit every lover of poetry’s taste, he has startling varieties of ways to use vocabulary for romance, love and affection. “This Paper Boat,” is one of the many valentine poems.
This Paper Boat
Carefully placed upon the future, it tips from the breeze and skims away, frail thing of words, this valentine, so far to sail.
And if you find it caught in the reeds, its message blurred, the thought that you are holding it a moment is enough for me (Kooser, 43).
Consequently, Kooser’s titles to most of his work indicate what he is going to write about. Without this title “This Paper Boat,” the reader would really have to imagine what he is describing. Some may not find this poem very romantic.
The tone can be found in the analysis of it, “Carefully placed upon the future,” or carefully we wait for the opportunity to find the right time and place to express our feelings. “It tips from the breeze and skims away,” perhaps referring to being gentle and floating on the “frail thing of words, this valentine,” possibly delicate expressions. “And if you find it caught in the reeds/ its message blurred,” often when someone try to convey an emotion they discover that their caught or stuck on what to say and the message is unclear. When overall “The thought that you are holding it a moment is enough for me” (Kooser). Just being able to share that moment with them is adored.
Again, Kooser’s title “Splitting an Order” tells the reader what he is going to tell him about.
Splitting an Order
I like to watch an old man cutting a sandwich in half, maybe an ordinary cold roast beef on whole wheat bread, no pickles or onion, keeping his shaky hands steady by placing his forearms firm on the edge of the table and using both hands, the left to hold the sandwich in place, and the right to cut it surely, corner to corner, observing his progress through glasses that moments before he wiped with his napkin, and then to see him lift half onto the extra plate that he had asked the server to bring, and then to wait, offering the plate to his wife while she slowly unrolls her napkin and places her spoon, her knife and her fork in their proper places, then smoothes the starched white napkin over her knees and meets his eyes and holds out both old hands to him (Kooser).
Kooser start the reader off with a clear scene in his mind of an old man setting at a table with a sandwich in front of him. “I like to watch an old man cutting a sandwich in half” (Kooser). The sandwich is what anyone might order. I often watch older men as they try to steady their hand, to accomplish simple daily tasks. They usually approach the task cautiously and precisely. It has been my experience to see older couple share meals. They can’t eat as much when they get older and often do not want to eat a big meal at night. She “smoothes the starched white napkin” (Kooser). I have such a vivid picture of this. There are many time I can recall seeing older women being so systematic and neat. This is another valentine poem of Koosers. At first the reader may not think of it much but, as I recall seeing older couples splitting an order. Their eyes and hands genuinely tell an unspoken tale. Years of enduring hard work and undying affection are told by these hands and the eyes share the everlasting love beyond anything a person could imagination, as she “meets his eyes and holds out both old hands to him”(Kooser). “Over 22 years, Kooser has discovered a startling variety of ways to invert and enliven the vocabulary of romance, finding tender implications in even the mustiest Valentine’s symbols” (Nussbaum).
Indeed Kooser’s poetry is uncomplicated “he hopes to reach out to readers who thought poetry was beyond their grasp” (Cryer). In the following poem, “Carrie” Kooser’s words are plain as he conveys a vital message.
Carrie
There's never an end to dust and dusting, my aunt would say as her rag, like a thunderhead, scudded across the yellow oak of her little house. There she lived seventy years with a ball of compulsion closed in her fist, and an elbow that creaked and popped like a branch in a storm. Now dust is her hands and dust her heart.
There's never an end to it (Kooser).
Although this is a short poem it tells the reader a great deal of information about Kooser’s aunt. Her name beholds the title of the poem “Carrie.” He relates that she was always dusting, keeping her house clean. She had lived in the same little house for seventy years. Her joints would make a lot of noise as she attempted to keep her home clean, moving swiftly across the fine wood in her home. She saw that this was done clear up until she died. It appears as though she always had a rag balled up in her hand. Just like dust, we hope that death is just another step and “There’s never an end to it” (Kooser).
Once again I find it fascinating how Kooser can take such plain items that anyone may not have even noticed and give it such great meaning. For example “"A Jar of Buttons"
This is a core sample from the floor of the Sea of Mending, a cylinder packed with shells that over many years sank through fathoms of shirts - pearl buttons, blue buttons - and settled together beneath waves of perseverance, an ocean upon which generations of women set forth, under the sails of gingham curtains, and, seated side by side on decks sometimes salted by tears, made small but important repairs (Kooser).
I quickly could visualize, although very overwhelming to me, a sea of mending because I have one. When I think of the sea, I picture a very large, never ending body of water. The buttons in my jar are just like sea shells no two are ever alike. It is amazing all of the different kinds and assortments of buttons one might acquire and how I can never find or have the one I need. “Generations of women” (Kooser) made me reflect back. Has there ever been a period of time when there wasn’t mending to do? I don’t enjoy mending but, when I think of doing it all by hand and not having a sewing machine I understand Kooser’s stanza “sometimes salted by tears.” Although most of Kooser poems are very straight forward, for instance “made small but important repairs” (Kooser) it made me stop and think. If you have a button missing in certain places, the garment is of no use until the simple but essential repair is made.
In addition to buttons Kooser writes about “A Spiral Notebook.” A spiral notebook was an item he possibly saw daily because of his mother’s incredible record keeping. Kooser states “My father was never a highly paid man, and in dime store spiral notebooks, she kept track of every cent they spent from 1936 till the day she died” (Local Wonders).
A Spiral Notebook
The bright wire rolls like a porpoise in and out of the calm blue sea of the cover, or perhaps like a sleeper twisting in and out of his dreams, for it could hold a record of dreams if you wanted to buy it for that though it seems to be meant for more serious work, with its college-ruled lines and its cover that states in emphatic white letters,
5 SUBJECT NOTEBOOK. It seems a part of growing old is no longer to have five subjects, each demanding an equal share of attention, set apart by brown cardboard dividers, but instead to stand in a drugstore and hang on to one subject a little too long, like this notebook you weigh in your hands, passing your fingers over its surfaces as if it were some kind of wonder (Kooser).
Kooser’s title, as with most of his other poems, informs the reader what he is going to talk about. His metaphor of the wire spiral notebook gives a beautiful and elegant description. It could be compared to a life. Although “it could hold a record of dreams / if you wanted to buy it for that” (Kooser), Kooser had witnessed in his lifetime the magnitude and seriousness of his mother’s notebooks. Maybe more important than dreams or was it her dream? He brings the reader’s attention to the clear emphasis of the white letters stating, “5 SUBJECT NOTEBOOK” (Kooser). After reading this poem I believe that some people could divide their lives in to five subjects or chapters. As they age they begin to see that some stages in life are more important than others. Kooser’s stanzas, “hang on to one subject / a little too long” makes me feel that sometimes people may have a hard time closing a chapter in their life and moving on to the next one. I do feel our lives are like Kooser describes the notebook, “as if it were some kind of wonder” (Kooser).
Kooser explores our common heritage as well as rural life in “So This Is Nebraska”
So This Is Nebraska
The gravel road rides with a slow gallop over the fields, the telephone lines streaming behind, its billow of dust full of the sparks of redwing blackbirds.
On either side, those dear old ladies, the loosening barns, their little windows dulled by cataracts of hay and cobwebs hide broken tractors under their skirts.
So this is Nebraska. A Sunday afternoon; July. Driving along with your hand out squeezing the air, a meadowlark waiting on every post.
Behind a shelterbelt of cedars, top-deep in hollyhocks, pollen and bees, a pickup kicks its fenders off and settles back to read the clouds.
You feel like that; you feel like letting your tires go flat, like letting the mice build a nest in your muffler, like being no more than a truck in the weeds, clucking with chickens or sticky with honey or holding a skinny old man in your lap while he watches the road, waiting for someone to wave to. You feel like waving. You feel like stopping the car and dancing around on the road. You wave instead and leave your hand out gliding larklike over the wheat, over the houses” (Kooser).
What is Nebraska? “The gravel road rides with a slow gallop / over the fields, the telephone lines / streaming behind its billow of dust / full of the sparks of redwing blackbirds” (Kooser). As the reader reads the first stanza, he starts to get a feel of what Nebraska is. Dirt roads that kick up dust clouds, where he cannot see the car behind him. The reader may look out the window and see field after field. The fields seem to roam up and down as far as the eye can see. Has he ever saw telephone lines and wondered where they started and where they might end? With so many blackbirds setting on them, the reader can’t even count them. Kooser’s first metaphor, the road rides with a “slow gallop,” It makes me think of a horse is galloping over the fields. As I picture a rural area in the Midwest, possibly hard to find these days, I can see and almost feel the streaming telephone lines and see the haze of the dust.
At the same time the reader looks on both sides of the road. “On either side, those dear old ladies, the loosening barns, their little windows dulled by cataracts of hay” (Kooser). The reader sees the older ladies perhaps on their front porch visiting and setting in a rocking chair. Maybe he can picture the old barns not far away from the houses. The barns are old and showing their age. They are not as sturdy as they used to be. They have undersized windows that are hard to see through, as if there is a film of hay covering them. Another metaphor, “cobwebs hide broken tractors under their skirts,” old rusted broken tractors scattered here and there covered with countless cobwebs.
Of course, the importance of the title in this poem, again Koosers repeats it “So this is Nebraska” the answer to my question. “A Sunday / afternoon; July. Driving along / with your hand out squeezing the air, / a meadowlark waiting on every post” (Kooser). I can almost experience taking a relaxing drive on a lazy Sunday afternoon. I am enjoying the warmth of the day in July. The truck windows rolled down, with my hands floating on the air. There are meadowlarks setting on post like they are just waiting for me to pass. “Behind a shelterbelt of cedars, / top-deep in hollyhocks, pollen and bees” (Kooser). On either side of me, I can see rows of cedar trees, forming a wind brake to protect the crops from the strong winds. Extending from the trees are Hollyhocks that looks as if they are forming a cover.
An additional metaphor, “a pickup kicks its fenders off / and settles back to read the clouds” (Kooser). Like the pickup, I like to find a nice grassy spot to stretch out and kick off my boots, and feel the warm July sun relaxing my entire body. I would like to have no worries and not a care in the world. As I sink to the bottom of the grass to construe and understand the mass of water in the sky. I hang around passing the time patiently; maybe a truck will pass by, just so I can wave. “You feel like that…/ no more than a truck in the weeds… / for someone to wave to” (Kooser).
“You feel like / waving. You feel like stopping the car / and dancing around on the road. You wave / instead and leave your hand out gliding / larklike over the wheat, over the houses” (Kooser). Being a rural area, it is not often to see a truck pass by so I know how you anticipate and wait for the next one truck, just to wave. Finally, I pass someone! How thrilling! I want to stop right in the middle of the road and not have the moment pass. But, as a substitute I waves and go on by. After reading this poem, most anyone that’s had the advantage of living in rural America will have a walk down memory lane and miss it.
As a result of Kooser’s notice to small details, everyday items and simple objects of our world become alive. Most any reader can get pleasure from his simple metaphors. Readers can experience the emotions that this talented writer has offered them through his poems. I do believe he is the master of the short metaphorical poem. His way of expressing love in the poems “The Paper Boat” and “Splitting and Order” was easy to understand. His way of expressing his affection in the short story of his aunt “Carrie” was as if you were a guest visiting her in her home. An everyday button from "A Jar of Buttons" just a plain item but, can be extremely necessary if needed for a simple but essential repair. Our life could be a book, even possibly “A Spiral Notebook” something so basic may hold such a precious history. His depiction of rural life is so masterfully described in “So This Is Nebraska.” Ted Kooser’s poetic language and simply eloquent style, is a heartfelt message to loved ones, everyday items, and rural America, which are effortless to understand throughout his poetry.

Work Cited

Cryer, Dan. “Ted Kooser’s Poetry of the People.” Uuworld. Winter 1 Nov. 2005. Web. 23 Feb. 2010 www.uuworld.org.
Gioia, Dana. "The Anonymity of the Regional Poet: Ted Kooser." Can Poetry Matter? Graywolf, 1992. Web. 23 Feb. 2010 www.danagioia.net
Kooser, Ted. “A Jar of Buttons” Delights & Shadows, Copper Canyon Press, Port Townsend, WA. Web. 23 Feb. 2010 www.npr.org.
Kooser, Ted. “A Spiral Notebook” Delights & Shadows Copper Canyon Press Port Townsend, WA. Web. 23 Feb. 2010 www.writersalmanac.publicradio.org.
Kooser, Ted. " Carrie.” Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry , Drama , and Writing.” X . J Kennedy, Dana Gioia. Eleventh Edition. 2010. 861 Print.
Kooser, Ted. “Local Wonders: Seasons in the Bohemian Alps.” Excerpt from Kooser.
University of Nebraska Press, 2002. Web. 23 Feb. 2010 http://www.tedkooser.net.

Kooser, Ted. “So This Is Nebraska” Sure Sign: New and Selected Poems. 1980 Pittsburgh, PA. Web. 23 Feb. 2010 www.poetryfoundation.org.

Kooser, Ted. “Splitting an Order" Valentines. University of Nebraska Press, 2008 Web. 23 Feb. 2010 www.writersalmanac.publicradio.org.
Kooser, Ted. “This Paper Boat " Valentines. University of Nebraska Press, 2008 Web. 23 Feb. 2010
Lund, Elizabeth. “Love Poems on a Postcard” The Christian Science Monitor. February 12, 2008. Web. 23 Feb. 2010 www.csmonitor.com.
Lund, Elizabeth. “Retired Insurance Man Puts a Premium on Verse” The Christian Science Monitor. November 16, 2004. Web. 23 Feb. 2010 www.csmonitor.com.
Lund, Elizabeth. “The Power of a Gentle Rain” The Christian Science Monitor. November 16, 2004. Web. 23 Feb. 2010 www.csmonitor.com.

Logan, William. “The Great American Desert” The New Criterion. June 2005. Web. 23 Feb. 2010 www.newcriterion.com.

Nussbaum, Emily. “Be Mine, Mine, Mine.” New York Times. March 9, 2008. Web. 23 Feb. 2010 www.nytimes.com.