Cover of "Windflower Home Almanac of Poetry" edited by Ted Kooser

Excerpt: Windflower Home Almanac of Poetry

Ted Kooser, U.S. poet laureate (2004–2006) and winner of the 2005 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry, is a retired presidential professor of English at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. He is the author of dozens of books, including Cotton Candy (Nebraska, 2022); Kindest Regards: Poems, Selected and NewRed Stilts; Splitting an Order; and Delights and Shadows. He is the editor of The Windflower Home Almanac of Poetry, a new edition was published by Nebraska in December.

The Windflower Home Almanac of Poetry is an anthology of poems originally selected by Ted Kooser in 1980 and published by his Windflower Press, a small, independent publisher that specialized in poetry from the Great Plains. The collection contains almost two hundred poems from dozens of poets and was designed to resemble a commonplace farmer’s almanac.

The Windflower Press was the sole operation of Kooser, who was later named the first U.S. poet laureate from the Great Plains. His press gained national recognition for highlighting the work of the region’s young poets, and its Windflower Home Almanac of Poetry earned notice from the Library Journal as one of its era’s best small press books.

Cover of "Windflower Home Almanac of Poetry" edited by Ted Kooser

"Lonlieness"

You have only to 
put out your hands
the fingers before you
like the folds of a fan
and the eight fingers of air 
fit perfectly inside your own 
they are always near you 
waiting to be wanted
holding you steady 
keeping in touch

—L. L. Zeiger

"Sunrise"

Here comes the sun
marching up over the hill
plain as you please
singing the same old song 
as loud as he can.

He enters the house
freely as ever 
kissing everybody
like an actress,
making the same 
barbershop chatter.
"yes sir,
yes sir.
You couldn't be more right 
if you tried."

It's the same old toothpaste smile 
and the same old slap on the back,

as if there were nobody missing,
as if he never left home.

—Victor Contoski

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