Splitting an Order

by Ted Kooser

Overview

"Ted Kooser must be the most accessible and enjoyable major poet in America. His lines are so clear and simple." —Michael Dirda, The Washington Post

"Readers [of Splitting an Order] will find 'characters' both strange and wonderful, animal or human. There is a sense that time is passing quickly and that everything worthy must be captured and savored." —Library Journal, starred review

"Kooser's ability to discover the smallest detail and render it remarkable is a rare gift." —Bloomsbury Review

Hailed by Library Journal as "a master of the single-metaphor poem," Pulitzer Prize winner and bestselling poet Ted Kooser calls attention to the intimacies of life through commonplace objects and occurrences. This collection—ten years in the making—is rich with quiet and profound magnificence.

I like to watch an old man cutting a sandwich in half
. . . and then to see him lift half
onto the extra plate that he asked the server to bring,
and then to wait, offering the plate to his wife
while she slowly unrolls her napkin and places her spoon,
her knife and her fork in their proper places,
then smoothes the starched white napkin over her knees
and meets his eyes and holds out both old hands to him.

Ted Kooser is the author of numerous books of poetry and prose, including Delights and Shadows (Copper Canyon), which won the Pulitzer Prize. A former US Poet Laureate, Kooser serves as editor for "American Life in Poetry," a nationally syndicated weekly newspaper column.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781556594700
Publisher:	Copper Canyon Press
Publication date:	11/29/2016
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	102
Sales rank:	1,240,887
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

Ted Kooser: Ted Kooser is the author of numerous books of poetry and prose, including Delights and Shadows (Copper Canyon), which won the Pulitzer Prize. A former U.S. Poet Laureate, Kooser is one of America's best-selling poets and serves as editor for "American Life in Poetry," a nationally syndicated weekly newspaper column.

Hometown:

Garland, Nebraska

Date of Birth:

1939

Place of Birth:

Ames, Iowa

Education:

B.S., Iowa State University, 1962; M.A., University of Nebraska, 1968

Table of Contents

I

Two Men on an Errand 5

110th Birthday 7

Near a Mall 8

Splitting an Order 9

An Incident 10

Bad News 11

Swinging from Parents 12

Potatoes 13

At Arby's, at Noon 14

A Meeting after Many Years 15

The Rollerblader 16

In a Gift Shop 17

Changing Drivers 19

Snapshot 20

Two 21

While We Were Passing 22

Gabardine 24

The Woman Whose Husband Was Dying 25

II

Estate Sale 29

Opossum 37

Backyard Fish Pool 38

A Visitant at Five A.M. 39

A Jonathan in Spring 40

Dead Bat 41

Sundial 42

Birdhouse 43

Tree Frog 44

Lantern 45

Dead Fly 46

Garrison, Nebraska 47

A Mouse in a Trap 48

A Wasp's Nest 49

Tree Removal 50

Barn Swallows 51

Zinc Lid 52

III

At a Kitchen Table 55

A Morning in Early Spring 56

Closing the Windows 60

The Past 61

Sleep Apnea 62

First Marriage 63

Grandfather 64

Howard 65

Deep Winter 66

New Moon 67

Hands in the Wind 68

Spanish Lessons 69

Painting the Barn 70

Those Summer Evenings 71

Awakening 72

A Person of Limited Palette 73

IV

Small Rooms in Time 77

Right Hand 84

About the Author 87

Editorial Reviews

08/18/2014
Former U.S. Poet Laureate Kooser’s long-awaited follow-up to 2005’s PulitzerPrize–winning Delights and Shadows is a journey of intimacies, a stroll through lives and minds via common objects and quotidian occurrences, that brims over with small profundities and discoveries. “Because it arrives while you sleep,” Kooser writes in “Bad News,” “it’s the one call you never pick up/ on the first ring.” Writing in the soft, casual tone he’s best known for, his focuses are the telephone, the sundial, the birdhouse, and the Arby’s meal. Kooser explores the bonds of love and friendship with simple insights into the marvels of existence and meditations on aging and weariness: “she stepped outside, and placed one foot/ and then the other on the future, and it held her up.” In “Tree Removal,” “the tree makes its exit with grace,/ going down slowly, one piece at a time.” Old objects, present and remembered, become the markers by which a mind reconstitutes and evaluates a life, “forever wading/ into the next hour, followed by the rest.” Kooser, alone “among the others who have stood here,” observes the slow summation of past and present people and things, all “becoming a piece of some great, rusty work/ we seem to fit exactly.” (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

★ 10/01/2014
There is a comfort in reading these poems from Pulitzer Prize winner and former U.S. Poet Laureate Kooser: the cozy notion that despite modern technology, he is there, observing the world deeply and writing the words needed to ground us. Readers will find "characters" both strange and wonderful, animal or human. There is a sense that time is passing quickly and that everything worthy must be captured and savored, from an old couple lovingly sharing a sandwich to another sowing seed potatoes to a tribute to an old dog who waits as age and winter approach: "its rippling scent a cold/ that floats on the rest of the cold/ like a snake on a pool." Included is an essay about a first house in which shootings and a murder later take place, illustrating how time and circumstance can startle and strike memory. VERDICT Master of the single-metaphor poem, Kooser offers images that evolve, fluid and unforced: "This old hand with which I am writing/ holding its pen and pecking its way/ across the paper like a hen, has pulled me/ clucking with little discoveries/ across more than seventy years." Recommended.—Karla Huston, Appleton, WI

Library Journal

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