Ted Kooser

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 other literary journals. His memoir, Local Wonders: Seasons in the Bohemian Alps, a Barnes & Noble Discover finalist, also won the 2002 Friends of American Writers Award and ForeWord Magazine’s gold medal recognition for autobiographical writing. He is the author of eight full-length collections of poetry, nine chapbooks and special editions, and Braided Creek, a collaboration with Jim Harrison, published by Copper Canyon Press in 2003. Kindest Regards: New and Selected Poems was published by Copper Canyon Press in 2018. Red Stilts was published by Copper Canyon Press in 2020. Braided Creek, a collaboration with Jim Harrison, was published by Copper Canyon Press as an expanded anniversary edition in 2023.