In my work, I really try to look at ordinary things quite closely to see if there isn't a little bit of something special about them. I'm trying to make something as nearly perfect as I can out of words. — Ted Kooser Copy Share Image
The poem is the device through which the ordinary world is seen in a new way - engaging, compelling, even beautiful. — Ted Kooser Copy Share Image
If you can find two poems in a book, it could be a pretty good book for you. You know, two poems you really… — Ted Kooser Copy Share Image
There's nothing wrong with delighting in what you do. In fact, most of the fun you'll have as a poet will come about during… — Ted Kooser Copy Share Image
“Considering the ways in which so many of us waste our time, what would be wrong with a world in which everybody were writing… — Ted Kooser Copy Share Image
When she left me I stood out in the thunderstorm, hoping to be destroyed by lightning. It missed, first left, then right. — Ted Kooser Copy Share Image
Every poet gets to choose what kind of community he or she serves with the poems, and it's true that there is a community… — Ted Kooser Copy Share Image
I had in effect been thrown out of graduate school because I was a lousy graduate student, and I had to find a job,… — Ted Kooser Copy Share Image
When I was a kid, I suppose I got more praise for being able to draw things and paint things than I did for… — Ted Kooser Copy Share Image
If I don't take the risk, I'll wind up with a bloodless poem. I have to be out there on the edge. — Ted Kooser Copy Share Image
There's always been what I would call the William Carlos Williams strain, in which poems of simplicity and clarity are valued by a different… — Ted Kooser Copy Share Image
I like the poem on the page and not at the podium. I like to address the poem in peace and quiet, not on… — Ted Kooser Copy Share Image
