by Harry Youtt

Created on: April 04, 2008

I'm one of the handful of people who knew of Ted Kooser before he wrote "The Poetry Home Repair Manual." Who is he? Well, he lives on farmland in Nebraska, but he carefully refrains from calling himself a farmer. Actually, he used to be an insurance company guy who wrote poems in his spare time and managed to get them published. So? There must be lots of people who write poems in their spare time. Well, one day this particular gentleman farmer - insurance company guy was getting ready to take some rented DVD's back to the video store when he received a call from someone telling him he'd just been appointed Poet Laureate of the United States. Ted thought it was a practical joke. It wasn't. Based on his poetry and not on any academic-political contacts, suddenly he was at the top of this country's poetry heap. He served in that capacity for two years, from 2004 to 2006. (Now do I have your attention?)

In "The Poetry Home Repair Manual," he shares the secrets underlying the poetic creations that got him noticed. Ted's focus is his enthusiasm for poems "describing everyday life. I've tried to show how the ordinary can be made extraordinary through close and transforming observation."

He doesn't pontificate, and that is refreshing. The book isn't very lengthy, he says, "because there's only so much I know." Take that for whatever it's worth. The fact is the book is a trove of useful advice for anybody who wants to write accessible poetry.

Ted's poetic mission is simple, even though it defies the so-called Poetry Establishment, that seems bent on keeping poetry an obscure commodity that most people don't want anything to do with. "Poetry's purpose," he says, "is to reach other people and to touch their hearts." His goal is nothing less than to write poetry that changes the way a reader views the world. All of this makes him a kind of a radical within mainstream circles. As he emphasizes: "Poets should . . . think less about the reception of critics and more about the needs of readers."

He also emphasizes that "We teach ourselves to write the kind of poems we like to read." I like that.

Of course there's an early chapter head called "Writing for Others." Also a very welcome: "Don't worry about the Rules" chapter, as well as practical applications chapters like "Writing from Memory," "Working with Detail," and "Controlling Effects through Careful Choices." There's even a chapter that presents this fascinating challenge: "Can You Read Your Poem through Your Poem?" That chapter spins off with his observation that: "The reader peers down through the clear floor of the poem, down through the page on which the words have been printed with type and ink, a page now magically gone transparent into a fascinating realm revealed by the poem."

There's a very interesting take on poetic figures of speech in the chapter: "Fine-Tuning Metaphors and Similes" that talks about the different effects that each of these enables. (Similes enable a poem to keep its "casual and conversational" tone, but they "lack the authority that metaphors convey." Each has its function and place in poetry.)

The final chapter: "Relax and Wait," explores techniques for touching up a poem so that it can "thrive by itself in a largely indifferent world."

Fame has not spoiled Ted Kooser, even though he now has entered the realms of academia, as a professor at the University of Nebraska. He is and has always been a poet of the people. Plain speech and resonance are his stock in trade. This book teaches nothing less than how to do what he does. It is ideal for anyone who aspires to follow poetry in that direction.

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