Raft

Delightfully universal, Raft by Pulitzer Prize-winner Ted Kooser travels the Midwest landscape, attuned to life’s shared experiences and emotions--illness, aging, beauty, and love.

Raftis our fourth collection of poetry from Pulitzer Prize-winner and former U.S. Poet Laureate, Ted Kooser. Open in his desire to write for the everyday reader, these poems maintain the open-handed and accessible style that thousands have come to love. Yet, deeply imagistic and metaphorically rich, Raft shows us that even the simplest of objects, the simplest of actions, can become a portal. A boy feeding a goldfish becomes a meditation on loneliness. Scraps of gauze open the door to a study on happiness. Both local and delightfully universal, Raft travels the Midwest landscape, attuned to the shared experiences and emotions of life--illness and aging, beauty and love. Some poems, nostalgia-wrapped, cradle elegies for lost family and friends. Adrift on life rafts of language, this book is a lesson in intentional observation, a celebration of the small, quiet wonders of life.

Ted Kooser is one of America’s best-selling poets. A retired insurance executive and Presidential Professor Emeritus at The University of Nebraska, he served as United States Poet Laureate and won the Pulitzer prize for Delights and Shadows (Copper Canyon Press). As United States Poet Laureate, he launched and edited a weekly newspaper column, ＂American Life in Poetry,＂ which has an estimated circulation of over four and a half million readers around the world. Along with poetry, Kooser has published several popular children’s books, a memoir, and numerous collections of nonfiction. He lives near the village of Garland, Nebraska, with his wife.