Poetry Friday: An Evening with Ted Kooser

“I write for other people with the hope that I can help them to see the wonderful things within their everyday experiences. In short, I want to show people how interesting the ordinary world can be if you pay attention.”  - Ted Kooser  
               

Thursday night was a magnificent evening in the Glasshouse of Chihuly Garden and Glass Museum. When my daughter and her husband took me to the museum for my birthday in 2013, we weren't allowed inside the Glasshouse due to a private event.  Last night I attended the Seattle Arts and Lectures Poetry Series in the Glasshouse with six friends of poetry and a house full of poetry lovers.  In this breathtaking setting, we reveled in the poems read by Ted Kooser.

 
He shared poems from his two new books of poetry published in 2014, Splitting an Order and The Wheeling Year, as well as older poems.  At the Poetry Foundation you can read "Two", one of my favorite poems of the evening, and listen to Ted Kooser read "A Letter in October".  

I borrow Ted's words from "Poem Before Breakfast," in the book Weather Central to capture my feelings of our magical evening:

"...perfectly cared for, perfectly

tended, one piece of a moment

borne skillfully over the water,

and I blessed to receive it."  

Thank you, Ted Kooser and poetry friends for many  lovely moments!

Head over to Jama's Alphabet Soup for this week's Poetry Roundup and a taste of poetry love!