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Press Releases
For Immediate Release
November 3, 2008
For more information, contact
Nicholas Mascari
(585) 395-2754
nmascari@brockport.edu
Poet Ted Kooser at The College at Brockport - Poet Laureate and Pulitzer Prize winner to give Writer's Voice Lecture
Brockport, NY – Poet Ted Kooser, two-time US Poet Laureate and winner of the Pulitzer Prize, will present the fifth annual Writer’s Voice Lecture at 7:30 pm, Thursday, November 13, at The College at Brockport MetroCenter, 55 St. Paul St., in Rochester. The event is free and open to the public. Seating is limited, with doors opening at 7 pm.
Hailed as a writer “who has written more perfect poems than any poet of his generation,” Ted Kooser is widely praised for his plainspoken style, his gift for metaphor, and his quiet discoveries of beauty in ordinary things.
In announcing his appointment in 2004 as the US Poet Laureate, Librarian of Congress James 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 was appointed Poet Laureate again in 2005.
Kooser is the author of a number of collections of poetry, including Flying at Night (2005); Delights & Shadows (2004), which won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry; Braided Creek: A Conversation in Poetry (2003) written with fellow poet and longtime friend, Jim Harrison; Winter Morning Walks: One Hundred Postcards to Jim Harrison (2000), which won the 2001 Nebraska Book Award for poetry; Weather Central (1994); One World at a Time (1985); and Sure Signs (1980). His nonfiction books include The Poetry Home Repair Manual: Practical Advice for Beginning Poets (2005) and Local Wonders: Seasons in the Bohemian Alps (2002).
In addition to his appointment as US Poet Laureate by the Librarian of Congress in 2004 and 2005 and the Pulitzer Prize, Kooser’s many honors include two NEA fellowships in poetry, a Pushcart Prize, the Stanley Kunitz Prize from Columbia University, and the Boatwright Prize from Shenandoah.
Kooser was born in Ames, Iowa, in 1939. He received his BA from Iowa State and his MA in English from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He is a professor in the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He lives near Garland, Nebraska, with his wife Kathleen Rutledge, the editor of the Lincoln Journal Star.
The Writer’s Voice lecture is in its fifth season, having featured poet Galway Kinnell, novelist/essayist Joyce Carol Oates, poet Yusef Komunyakaa, and novelist Ha Jin. The series is sponsored by The College at Brockport’s Writers Forum and M&T Bank.
The College at Brockport, State University of New York
350 New Campus Drive * Brockport, New York 14420-2931
(585) 395-2754 * FAX (585) 395-2723 *
www.brockport.edu