Delights & Shadows by Ted Kooser - Poetry Collection Paperback | Copper Canyon Press 2004 | Perfect for Book Clubs & Literary Enthusiasts

Delights and Shadows is Ted Kooser’s Pulitzer Prize winning collection of poetry published in 2004. It is an outstanding work of poetry in its immediate accessibility, and the beckoning for a return created by the poems. Kooser trusts the power of language, and his writing does not call attention to himself as much as the subject. Yet you leave the book feeling like you’ve met a friend who just shared some great stories with you.The book is broken into four sections, but I did not find them highlighting a change in continuity or subject. Like many great poets, Kooser looks at the everyday items around us and finds a new way of seeing them. Sometimes this backfires for poets as it can sound like a Seinfeld comedy routine, but Kooser looks more amazed at seeing something familiar for the first time. Whether is a blue, spiral notebook or a necktie, you can hear his surprise.The NecktieHis hands fluttered like birds,each with a fancy silk ribbonto weave into their nest,as he stood at the mirrordressing for work, waving helloto himself with both hands.Not only do you see Kooser’s new look at an old item here, but you get a glimpse of his sense of humor. In many of the poems you hear the poet chuckling as he tells the story, but he never laughs at people. This is a rare trait in humanity, and it shows us a man who is both wise and humble (an even rarer trait).StudentThe green shell of his backpack makes him leaninto wave after wave of responsibility,and he swings his stiff arms and cupped hands,paddling ahead. He has extended his neckto its full length, and his chin, hard as a beak,breaks the cold surf. He’s got his baseball cap onbackward as up he crawls, out of the frothof a hangover and onto the sand of the future,and lumbers, heavy with hope, into the library.The balance comes in poems addressing “heavy” topics with a light touch. Not humorous, but not needed to make more dramatic what is already dramatic. Kooser clearly deals with old age in a number of poems, and death is not too far from much of what he writes (although death, alas, does not belong solely to the aged). Having spent time watching my youngest son unsuccessfully battle cancer, I appreciated the “grace” Kooser sees in this poem.At the Cancer ClinicShe is being helped toward the open doorthat leads to the examining roomsby two young women I take to be her sisters.Each bends to the weight of an armand steps with the straight, tough bearingof courage. At what must seem to bea great distance, a nurse holds the door,smiling and calling encouragement.How patient she is in the crisp white sailsof her clothes. The sick womanpeers from under her funny knit capto watch each foot swing scuffing forwardand take its turn under her weight.There is no restlessness or impatienceor anger anywhere in sight. Gracefills the clean mold of this momentand all the shuffling magazines grow still.Another interesting set of poems revolves around four Civil War paintings by Winslow Homer. The paintings are not in the book, but Kooser paints them so well you can imagine them. The poems are numbered, but fall under a single title of “Four Civil War Paintings by Winslow Homer.” I find it interesting when art comments on art, and Kooser uses poetry to respond to the paintings. It is not an art critique, but a response to art. He does not examine the brushstrokes as much as the mind behind the paintings. A series of paintings you may walk too quickly by in a museum show their depth when given consideration.1. SharpshooterA Union sniper in a treeSome part of art is the artof waiting – the chordbehind the tight fenceof a musical staff,the sonnet shut in a book.This is a painting ofwaiting: the sharp crackof the rifle still coiledunder the tinypercussion cap, the cappoised under the cockedcurl of the hammer,and this young man amongthe pine needles,his finger as light as a breathon the trigger,just a pinpoint of lightin his one open eye,like a star you might seein broad daylightif you thought to look up.There is rarely a place to go wrong in opening this book, and it is one worth returning to again and again. For those hoping to attract people into the world of poetry, Kooser is one of those poets that non-poets will “get.”Kooser also has a wonderful website with some of the poems, media (including nearly an hour of a poetry reading), and some great information. He is a former U.S. Poet Laureate and lives in Nebraska. He also edits the weekly newspaper column, “American Life in Poetry.”