Hello and welcome back to the Daily Poem here on the Close Reeds Podcast Network.

I'm David Curran.

Today's poem is by Ted Cooser, who was an American poet.

He's born in 1939.

He's still living, actually.

He served as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004 to 2006.

He was one of the first poet laureates to come from the Great Plains.

And it was said by, I think it was Danagoia, that he has written more perfect poems than any other American poet of his generation,

something along those lines.

We actually reviewed his newest collection in the Forma Review, the weekly book review that goes

along with our journal with Forma Journal. You can find out more about that if you want to at

formajournal.com. But this week we reviewed that. And so that inspired me to read one of his poems.

And this is one of his poems called So This Is Nebraska. It was published in a collection called

Sure Signs in 1980. This is how it goes.

The gravel road rides with a slow gallop over the fields.

The telephone lines streaming behind,

its billow of dust full of the sparks of red-wing blackbirds.

On either side, those dear old ladies, the loosening barns,

their little windows dulled by cataracts of hay and cobwebs,

hide broken tractors under their skirts.

So this is Nebraska.

A Sunday afternoon.

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