|| Poetry Workshops with Poet Laureates ||
Every town and city has its poetry lovers, creators and readers. To emphasize the importance of poetry in its relation to music, the Library is offering poetry events at each city on the tour.
At selected venues, Ted Kooser, Poet Laureate of the United States in the Library of Congress, will give poetry readings and conduct poetry workshops. On making the appointment of Kooser to the position, Librarian of Congress James H. Billington said, "Ted Kooser is a major poetic voice for rural and small town America and the first Poet Laureate chosen from the Great Plains. His verse reaches beyond his native region to touch on universal themes in accessible ways."
Kooser won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his book Delights & Shadows (2004). His other poetry books include Sure Signs (1980), which received the Society of Midland Authors Prize for the best book of poetry by a Midwestern writer published in that year; One World at a Time (1985); Weather Central (1994); and Winter Morning Walks: One Hundred Postcards to Jim Harrison (2000), winner of the 2001 Nebraska Book Award for Poetry. A book of his essays, Local Wonders: Seasons in the Bohemian Alps (2002), won the Nebraska Book Award for Nonfiction in 2003. The book was also chosen as the Best Book Written by a Midwestern Writer for 2002 by Friends of American Writers, and it won the Gold Award for Autobiography in ForeWord Magazines Book of the Year Awards. Kooser is also the author, with his longtime friend Jim Harrison, of Braided Creek: A Conversation in Poetry (2003), for which the two poets received the 2003 Award for Poetry from the Society of Midland Authors.
Among Kooser's other awards and honors are two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, the Pushcart Prize, the Stanley Kunitz Prize, the James Boatwright Prize, and a Merit Award from the Nebraska Arts Council. He is a visiting professor in the English department of the University of Nebraska at Lincoln.
Dates, Locations, and Registration Information
Coming soon.