Ted Kooser was probably the first contemporary poet I read. There were several books around the house–Sure Signs, Weather Central, Not Coming To Be Barked At. I was drawn in by the metaphor, how contentedly the poems lived in poetically neglected places. A department store, for instance.
Until recently, though, I hadn’t gone back to Kooser. I was happy for his laureatehood, and winced as critics summarily slapped his work around.
This week I returned to the work–One World at a Time, a slim volume published by Pittsburgh UP in 1985–and am glad I did.
Here’s a poem with powerful underpants:
LAUNDRY
A pink house trailer,
scuffed and rusted, sunken
in weeds. On the line,five pale blue workshirts
up to their elbows
in raspberry canes–a good, clean crew
of pickers, out early,
sleeves wet with dew,and near them, a pair
of bright yellow panties
urging them on.
The everyday’s animation is Kooser’s bread and butter, as is the heavy cadence of last lines. The above humor is rare, though the book’s other poem with tercets is packed with reverent fish.
CARP
On the river bottom,
the carp have blown out
all the candles.They whisper along
over the closed, black
bibles of clams.Water-monks these,
with mouths like those
of angels singing,but not angelic,
so very naked now
in darkness,their cool, hard bodies
touching, among
the tapestries of weed.
I love the transformation of clams to bibles, the carp’s new ability to bring on the night. There’s more to recommend One World at a Time. Whichever way their noses might have turned in the past, Kooser skeptics ought to root it out.