Friday afternoon I had a full schedule, but everything fell through. Disappointment led to opportunity, and I picked up a book to read at the library. I ended up with Valentines, poems by Ted Kooser. (I do realize that it's in the middle of August, not Valentine's Day. Deal with it.)
In 1986, Kooser started a project in which he started sending Valentines to his female friends and fans. He'd write a poem, print it on postcards, send them to Valentine, NE to be postmarked from there, and have them mailed out to his list of ladies. He started writing to 50 women, and by 2007 he was sending his Valentine poems to around 2600. Kooser decided that last year was his last year to do this, but now all of his Valentine poems are collected in this book. They're not mushy or sexual, but thoughtful or playful.
His first Valentine poem was "Pocket Poem", which is my favorite of the entire collection. You can hear him read it at the NPR link "Ted Kooser shares the poetry of Valentine's Day".
Monday, August 25, 2008
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