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While we were quite rightly applauding our very own Cannon Poet Laureate – ie. Birmingham Laureate Don Barnard – it may come as little surprise that we missed the awarding of another accolade: the appointment of Ted Kooser as Poet Laureate of the USA. There is a good chance that the vast majority of Americans will have missed it too. Just what the policy on US poets laureate has become is difficult to fathom. After Billy Collins’ quite respectable stint, Louise Glück came and went in the bat of an iamb, leaving, as far as I can see, just one memorable quote: ‘The truth on the page need not have been lived. It is, instead, to be envisioned.’ (Discuss.)

Now, for only eight months, I understand, we have Ted – though that’s a good name, you must admit, if you want to be a major poet. Some already think he is: ‘A major poetic voice for rural and small town America and the first poet laureate from the Great Plains.’ (Michael Billington.) Now 65, Kooser has taught at the University of Nebraska since 1970 and produced nine books of poetry, the most recent being Delights and Shadows (Copper Canyon). In the vein of Collins, with a poetic pedigree that goes back to W Carlos Williams, Kooser is accessible almost to a fault: ‘Still and dark, and raining hard / on a cold May morning // and yet the early bird / is out there chirping, // chirping its sweet-sour / wooden-pulley notes, // pleased it would seem, / to be given work, // hauling the heavy / bucket of dawn // up from the darkness, / note over note // and letting us drink.’ That is the whole of ‘The Early Bird’.

In fairness, one must look at other poems, such as the compassionate ‘Tattoo’: ‘What once was meant to be a statement - / a dripping dagger held in the fist /… / is now just a bruise  / on a bony old shoulder / … / another old man, picking up / broken tools and putting them back….’ This poem appears in the June 2003 issue of Poetry, of interest because it also contains poems by Collins and an earlier US laureate, Rita Dove, and one cannot but notice the difference in standards. The problem seems to be that American poetry has been hijacked into the academic system (it is significant that biographical notes on poets consist almost entirely of where they teach/have taught).

How do such poets get the people of ‘rural and small town America’ to read/listen to/want to enjoy poetry? Kooser himself is aware of this: ‘I attempt in my poems to take ordinary things and look at them in a new light…. I see my job as being a promoter of poetry of all kinds.’ Good intentions but… in eight months? You’ve got a job on your hands there, Ted - good luck to you.   

John Alcock

If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.  

Emily Dickinson

Good poets are the explorers of the world. Out on the frontiers, they send back bulletins. 

Eamonn Grennan