Is ted kooser still alive
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Poet in Profile – Ted Kooser
Ted Kooser is a prolific poet, devoted to engaging a broad audience for poetry through his own creative work and the weekly newspaper column he edited, American Life in Poetry. The column was carried in more than 150 newspapers. Ted Kooser was named the United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry in 2004 and was reappointed in 2005. He lives on an acreage 3 miles outside the village of Garland, Nebraska—not far from Omaha, where I reside. His poetry collections and non-fiction often include finely-crafted observations about his home state, the landscape, and the people who reside there.1 Over the past several years, I have enjoyed hearing him read his work at public events, have visited with him and his wife Kathleen over dinner at the home of mutual friends, and have corresponded with him. We share an interest in writing creatively about personal illness, as both of us lived through diagnosis and treatment of cancer. His illness and recovery led to a poetry collection that is a departure from themes that generally are the focus of his work.
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Ted Kooser and Connie Wanek's co-authored children's book, Marshmallow Clouds: Two Poets at Play Among Figures of Speech, received the 2023 Centre for Literacy in Primary Poetry Award (CLiPPA). The CLiPPA is the only award solely presented for published poetry for children in the UK. “Marshmallow Clouds impressed all the judges with the sheer quality of the poetry,” said Chris Riddell, former Children’s Laureate and chair of the judges. “The illustrations are in sympathy with the poems and the quality of the design and production is outstanding. It is a thing of beauty.” Read the full story from the Poetry Society.
Passing Through: Ted Kooser
Bill Frakes and Laura Heald of Straw Hat Visuals spent a morning with Ted in his home in Garland, NE, and talked with him about his writing and routine. It’s a wonderful story of excellence, dedication and perseverance. This video is part of the The Nebraska Project, a multimedia project that seeks to explore and preserve stories from the land of the Good Life.
Dick Cavett reads So This is Nebraska
In honor of the University
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About Ted Kooser
The United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004 - 2006
Professional Information
I am Presidential Professor Emeritus at The University of Nebraska, where I taught the writing of poetry. My own poems have been collected in a number of full-length volumes and special editions and have appeared in many literary periodicals. A number of my poems appear in textbooks and anthologies currently in use in secondary school and college classrooms.
For fifteen years I edited a weekly newspaper column, “American Life in Poetry,” which continues to be carried in a number of newspapers and is available online at www.americanlifeinpoetry.org. The column had an estimated circulation of over four and a half million readers around the world.
In the past few years I have enjoyed writing for children, and those books are listed below.
Biographical Data
Born April 25, 1939, in Ames, Iowa. Attended Ames Public Schools, Iowa State University (B.S. 1962), and the University of Nebraska (M.A. 1968). Worked for many years as a life ins
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