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Poet Laureate Awarded Pulitzer Prize

© Linda Sue Grimes

Ted Kooser was appointed poet paureate in 2004, and in April, 2005, James H. Billington, Librarian of Congress, reappointed him to that position for 2005. During the same week in April that Kooser received the reappointment as poet laureate, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his book of poems, Delights & Shadows.

The U.S. poet laureate was born in Ames, Iowa, in 1939. In 1962, he completed a bachelor of science degree from Iowa State University and in 1968 a master of arts degree from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He now holds a position of visiting professor in creative writing at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He served many years until his retirement as a vice-president of Lincoln Benefit Life, an insurance company. He and his wife, Kathleen Rutledge, reside on a farm near Garland, Nebraska. They have a son and a granddaughter.

Kooser is widely published in such influential journals as The Atlantic Monthly, The New Yorker, Poetry, and The Hudson Review. His work has appeared in textbooks used at the high school and college level, and he has been awarded two National Endowments of the Arts fellowships in poetry, the Stanley Kunitz Prize, the Pushcart Prize, the James Boatwright Prize, and a Merit Award from the Nebraska Arts Council.

The poet laureate has read widely across the country for the Academy of American Poetry. He has also read at many universities, including the University of California at Berkeley, Cornell at Ithaca, Case Western Reserve at Cleveland, The School of the Art Institute in Chicago, and Wesleyan University in Connecticut. And, he has taught workshops at many of these universities.

Not only is he a poet, but also an essayist, playwright, fiction writer, and literary critic. His nonfiction prose book, Local Wonders: Seasons in the Bohemian Alps, has won numerous awards. The University of Nebraska Press brought out his latest book of prose, The Poetry Home Repair Manual, in January, 2005, a book to help beginning poets get started with their craft.

As editor and publisher at Windflower Press, Kooser published contemporary poetry, including two literary magazines, The Salt Creek Reader (1967-1975) and The Blue Hotel (1980-1981). The former won several grants from the National Endowment of the Arts. The Windflower publication, The Windflower Home Almanac of Poetry, was honored as the best book from a small press in 1980.

Each poet laureate infuses his/her own agenda into the position, and Ted Kooser has initiated a unique venue for achieving the goal of increasing readership for poetry. His American Life in Poetry offers a column free to newspapers each week.

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