Red Stilts finds Pulitzer Prize-winner and former U. S. Poet Laureate
Ted Kooser at the top of his imaginative and storytelling powers. Here
are the richly metaphorical, imagistically masterful, clear and
accessible poems for which he has become widely known. Kooser writes for
an audience of everyday readers and believes poets "need to write poetry
that doesn't make people feel stupid." Each poem in Red Stilts strives
to reveal the complex beauties of the ordinary, of the world that's
right under our noses. Right under Kooser's nose is rural America, most
specifically the Great Plains, with its isolated villages, struggling
economy, hard-working people and multiple beauties that surpass
everything wrecked, wrong, or in error.