Ted Kooser's "December 2"

The Daily Poem

Goldberry Studios

Education For Kids, Arts, Kids & Family

4.6 • 729 Ratings

🗓️ 2 December 2020

⏱️ 6 minutes

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Summary

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. --Bio via Copper Canyon Press.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome back to The Daily poem. I'm David Kern, and today is Wednesday, December 2nd, 2020.
0:07.0	It's really great to be back with you, as I mentioned yesterday, and this month we've got some winter-themed poems coming.
0:13.5	Later in the month, we'll have plenty of Advent and Christmas and New Year themes.
0:17.4	But today, I want to read a poem that's about the weather in December.
0:23.3	One of my favorite poets who you have heard from on this podcast before is Ted Cooser.
0:28.2	He's an American poet who is still living.
0:29.9	He was born in 1939 and served as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004 to 2006.
0:38.0	And he has a poem actually called December 2nd.
0:41.9	And it is part of a poetry collection called 100 postcards to Jim Harrison.
0:47.8	Jim Harrison was an American poet who you are going to hear from later this month.
0:52.1	And this one was the postcard that he sent to Jim Harrison on December 2nd.
0:57.1	And each of those poems had a little description of the weather at the beginning of the poem.
1:01.3	So some said breezy and warm.
1:03.6	And on December 2nd, it said clear and cool.
1:07.7	And this is how the poem went.
1:12.4	Walking in darkness.
1:14.6	In awe, beneath a billion indifferent stars at quarter to six in the morning.
1:20.1	The moon already down and gone, but keeping a pale lamp burning at the edge of the west.
1:26.2	My shoes too loud on the gravel that faintly lit
1:28.7	looks to be little more than a contrail of vapor, so thin, so insubstantial it could on a whim,
1:35.7	let me drop through it and out of the day. But I have taught myself to place one foot ahead of the
1:42.8	other in noisy confidence, as if each morning might be
	...

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