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• American Life in Poetry: Column 287 | 09.21.10

  2129 readersby Ted Kooser, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006 I love to sit outside and be very still until some little creature appears and begins to go about its business, and here is another poet, Robert Gibb, of Pennsylvania, doing just the same thing. For the Chipmunk in My Yard I think he knows I’m alive, having come down The three

• American Life in Poetry: Column 289 | 10.05.10

  1804 readersby Ted Kooser, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006 There’s only so much we can do to better ourselves, and once we’ve done what we can, it still may not have been enough. Here’s a poem by Michelle Y. Burke, who lives in N.Y., in which a man who does everything right doesn’t quite do everything right. Nocturne A man

• American Life in Poetry: Column 297 | 11.30.10

  3582 readersby Ted Kooser, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006 To be stumped by the very last crossword puzzle you ever will work on, well, that’s defeat, but a small and amusing defeat. Here George Bilgere, a poet from Ohio, gives us a picture of his mother’s last day on earth. Blank When I came to my mother’s house the day after

• American Life in Poetry: Column 286 | 09.14.10

  1981 readersby Ted Kooser, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006 One of my friends told me he’d seen a refrigerator magnet that read, PARENTING; THE FIRST 40 YEARS ARE THE HARDEST. Here’s a fine poem about parenthood, and about letting go of children, by Chana Bloch, who lives in Berkeley, California. Through a Glass On the crown of his head where the

• American Life in Poetry: Column 281 | 08.10.10

  1229 readersby Ted Kooser, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006 Anton Chekhov, the master of the short story, was able to see whole worlds within the interactions of simple Russian peasants, and in this little poem by Leo Dangel, who grew up in rural South Dakota, something similar happens. One September Afternoon Home from town the two of them sit looking over what

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  American Life in Poetry: Column 283 | 08.24.10

  2244 readersby Ted Kooser, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006 I’ve read dozens of poems written about the events of September 11, 2001, but this one by Tony Gloeggler of New York City is the only one I’ve seen that addresses the good fortune of a survivor. Five Years Later My brother was on his way to a dental appointment when the second

• American Life in Poetry: Column 319 | 05.03.11

  7204 readersby Ted Kooser, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006 Here’s a poem in which eight-year-old Ava Schicke, who lives in Omaha, Nebraska, tells us just who she is and what she thinks. I am I am a daughter and a sister. I wonder when I will die. I hear the warm weather coming. I see stars in the day. I want to learn my

• American Life in Poetry: Column 314 | 03.30.11

  2151 readersby Ted Kooser, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006 Maybe you have to be a poet to get away with sniffing the paws of a dog, and I have sniffed the paws of all of mine, which almost always smell like hayfields in sunlight. Here Jane Varley, who lives in Ohio, offers us a touching last moment with

• American Life in Poetry: Column 317 | 04.19.11

  5775 readersby Ted Kooser, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006 Our wars come home, sooner or later. Judith Harris lives in Washington, D.C., and in this poem gives us a veteran of Iraq back among the ordinary activities of American life. End of Market Day At five, the market is closing. Burdock roots, parsley, and rutabagas are poured back into the trucks. The antique

• American Life in Poetry: Column 312 | 03.15.11

  2790 readersby Ted Kooser, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006 Ellery Akers is a California poet who here brings all of us under a banner with one simple word on it. The Word That Is a Prayer One thing you know when you say it: all over the earth people are saying it with you; a child blurting it out as the seizures