Kindest Regards: New and Selected Poems

Ted Kooser

Four decades of poetry—and a generous selection of new work—make up this extraordinary collection by Pulitzer Prize winner Ted Kooser. Firmly rooted in the landscapes of the Midwest, Kooser’s poetry succeeds in finding the emotional resonances within the ordinary. Kooser’s language of quiet intensity trains itself on the intricacies of human relationships, as well as the animals and objects that make up our days. As Poetry said of his work, “Kooser documents the dignities, habits, and small griefs of daily life, our hunger for connection, our struggle to find balance.”

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ISBN: 9781556595332

Format: Hardcover

In the Basement of the Goodwill Store

In musty light, in the thin brown air
of damp carpet, doll heads and rust,
beneath long rows of sharp footfalls
like nails in a lid, an old man stands
trying on glasses, lifting each pair
from the box like a glittering fish
and holding it up to the light
of a dirty bulb. Near him, a heap
of enameled pans as white as skulls
looms in the catacomb shadows,
and old toilets with dry red throats
cough up bouquets of curtain rods.

You’ve seen him somewhere before.
He’s wearing the green leisure suit
you threw out with the garbage,
and the Christmas tie you hated,
and the ventilated wingtip shoes
you found in your father’s closet
and wore as a joke. And the glasses
that finally fit him, through which
he looks to see you looking back—
two mirrors that flash and dance—
are those through which one day
you too will look down over the years,
when you have grown old and thin
and no longer particular,
and the things you once thought
you were rid of forever
have taken you back in their arms.

About the Author

Thirteenth United States Poet Laureate (2004–2006) Ted Kooser is a retired life insurance executive who lives on acreage near the village of Garland, Nebraska, with his wife, Kathleen Rutledge. He is a visiting professor at the University of Nebraska, where he teaches poetry and nonfiction writing. His collection Delights & Shadows was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry in 2005. His poems have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, The Hudson Review, The Antioch Review, The Kenyon Review, and dozens of …

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Reviews

“As Kooser records everyday pleasures and griefs, he remembers those he will never see again and underscores the deep need we all have for connection, moments of respite and the abiding sense that our ordinary moments matter.” —Elizabeth Lund, Washington Post

“Reading Ted Kooser’s poetry is like wearing a favorite pair of gloves. They are so warm and comforting that you cannot weather the world without them. They hold memories of everything touched, held, and hugged; they hold memories of home.” —Andrew Jarvis, New York Journal of Books

“Nothing escapes him; everything is illuminated.” –Library Journal

“This generous selection of new and selected poems makes it clear for the first time that Kooser’s great gift isn’t for turning language to a camera eye, but rather the way he inscribes the tiniest bit of warmth into each one of his poems.” —Literary Hub

“Kooser’s greatest assets have long been his generous eye and his way with understatement, two qualities abundantly present in this book of new and selected poems.” —Jacob Bernstein, New York Times

“Will one day rank alongside of Edgar Lee Masters, Robert Frost, and William Carlos Williams.” ―Star Tribune

“Kooser’s poems, the best of which have been gathered in his new retrospective, Kindest Regards, answer that cultural condescension by being mildly subversive, unveiling literary vignettes where, at first glance, it does seem that not much of anything is going on. Yet not far beneath the surface of the narrative, something profound inevitably glows.” —Christian Science Monitor

“Kooser’s ability to discover the smallest detail and render it remarkable is a rare gift.” —Bloomsbury Review

“Uninterested in cynicism, Kooser has been sentimental without becoming saccharine. He is one of our best poets, and not simply because his style widens the reach of the art form.” —National Review

“Kindest Regards is a quiet masterpiece…” —Poet Lore