American Life in Poetry: Column 270 BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006 We are sometimes amazed by how well the visually impaired navigate the world, but like the rest of us, they have found a way to do what interests them. Here Jan Mordenski of Michigan describes her mother, absorbed in crocheting. Crochet Even [...]

American Life in Poetry: Column 263 BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006 Music lessons, well, maybe 80 out of every 100 of us had them, once, and a few of us went on to play our chosen instruments all our lives. But the rest of us? I still own a set of red John [...]

Jason Crane remembers Jaime Escalante, one of my heroes,  in a wonderful piece. He begins: I sing the body mathematical; my children calculate the warp and woof of the universe. Read it in full: My Name is Jaime Escalante.

American Life in Poetry: Column 262 BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006 When we hear news of a flood, that news is mostly about the living, about the survivors. But at the edges of floods are the dead, too. Here Michael Chitwood, of North Carolina, looks at what’s floating out there on the margins. [...]

American Life in Poetry: Column 261 BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE All over this country, marriage counselors and therapists are right now speaking to couples about unspoken things. In this poem, Andrea Hollander Budy, an Arkansas poet, shows us one of those couples, suffering from things done and undone. Betrayal They decide finally not [...]