When she left me I stood out in the thunderstorm, hoping to be destroyed by lightning. It missed, first left, then right.
Ted KooserThe poem is the device through which the ordinary world is seen in a new way - engaging, compelling, even beautiful.
Ted KooserEvery time somebody writes a theory about where literature's going, that person is not only contributing thought but nudging things to happen in one way or the other. Just as in painting, there's much more interest in the American scene painters and the early American... like the Ashcan school of painters. Who would have thought, 50 years ago, that Norman Rockwell would again be considered a serious painter? And yet, there are a lot of people who are saying Rockwell was a very accomplished technician. These things are constantly moving.
Ted KooserThere'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 the process of writing.
Ted KooserI try to be realistic with students. And say that there's a good chance that they're not going to get a creative writing teaching job, that there aren't enough jobs to go around and the university faculties are cutting back on staff and that they may have to get some other kind of work. None of them wants to hear that, but it is true and I think I'm a good example for them of somebody who took the other route.
Ted Kooser