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Ted Kooser

Theodore J. Kooser (born 25 April 1939) is an American poet. He won the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry in 2005. He served as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004 to 2006. Kooser was one of the first poets laureate selected from the Great Plains, and is known for his conversational style of poetry.

Early life
Ted Kooser was born in Ames, Iowa, on April 25, 1939. Growing up, Kooser attended Ames Public Schools for elementary and middle school. When Kooser arrived at Ames High School, his interest diverted from the library, and it went to cars. He joined the Nightcrawlers Car Club and became secretary of the group in 1956. His motivation for writing in high school can be in part credited to one of his teachers, Mary McNally, who encouraged him to continue writing essays and poems that reflected his life.

Education
Kooser graduated from Ames High School with a class of 175 students and enrolled at Iowa State University, the alma mater of his uncles. He began writing short nonfiction stories for the Iowa State student literary magazine. He also joined the Iowa State Writer’s Round Table, which he credits for fine-tuning his writing skills; Iowa Senator Tom Harkin was also a part of the group. In 1961, Kooser moved to Marshalltown, Iowa, to student teach English classes. The following year he graduated with a BS in English education from Iowa State University and moved to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to live with his parents. He was offered a graduate readership opportunity at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and in 1963, he and his wife moved to Lincoln, Nebraska. After winning the Vreeland Award for poetry in 1964, he soon after lost his graduate readership from the University for his poor GPA. In 1967, he received his MA from Nebraska.

Career
After earning his MA, Kooser worked at Bankers Life Nebraska. He eventually went on to work for Lincoln Benefit Life (a subsidiary of Allstate), an insurance company, for 35 years before retiring as vice president at the age of 60. He wrote for an hour and a half before work every morning, and by the time he retired, Kooser had published seven books of poetry. Kooser taught as a Presidential Professor in the English department of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and is currently a Professor Emeritus.

On August 12, 2004, he was named Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry by the Librarian of Congress to serve a term from October 2004 through May 2005.

In April 2005, Theodore J. Kooser was appointed to serve a second term as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry. During that same week, Kooser received the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his book Delights & Shadows (Copper Canyon Press, 2004). Edward Hirsch wrote: "There is a sense of quiet amazement at the core of all Kooser’s work, but it especially seems to animate his new collection of poems, Delights & Shadows."

Kooser's most recent books are Kindest Regards: New and Selected Poems and Red Stilts (2020).

He founded and hosted the newspaper project "American Life in Poetry". In 2020, Kooser chose Kwame Dawes, a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, to be his successor as of January 1, 2021. Kooser also edits the Ted Kooser Contemporary Poetry series published by the University of Nebraska Press.

Awards & Honors

Midwest Poetry Renaissance
Ted Kooser was part of the Midwest Poetry Renaissance in the 1960s and 1970s. The Midwest Poetry Renaissance drew on elements of Rural America through a five-state swath of the Great Plains region. Poets of the Midwest were respected among artists throughout the country due to being informed of larger societal forces, such as the distrust of a media-driven culture.

More small presses opened up in that time, and Midwestern poets began publishing more work. Warren Woessner regards the catalyst of the MPR to be the anthology Heartland in 1967. The movement began to develop after that point, along with the works of Ted and other poets such as Victor Contoski, Mak Vinz, David Steinglass, Gary Gildner, James Hazard, Greg Kuzma, Judith Minty, and Kathy Weigner (as well as many others) who exemplified the rural subject matter and conversational tone. Most of the poets were in their twenties or early thirties and published their first books.

Ted was in his late twenties and thirties during the decade the Midwest Poetry Renaissance occurred. He published his first book through the University of Nebraska Press at age 30, titled “Official Entry Blank.” Ted’s first full-length book was already out of print by the early 1970s, at which time he became more of a small press poet like many other poets in the Midwest. Ted continued to receive publication of individual poems within anthologies and published several more books in small presses. He also began to edit The New Salt Creek Reader, which had six anthologies by 1974.

According to Warren Woessner, a poet during the Midwest Poetry Renaissance, the movement ended in 1975 with the publication of Heartland II.

Poetic Style
Ted Kooser is known for his conversational style of poetry that is accessible to a nonliterary public. Critic Dana Gioia, in his book Can Poetry Matter?, describes Kooser’s style as "drawn from common speech, with subject matter common to the Midwest." Kooser's early and contemporary work involves both troubles for Midwesterners, and observations from everyday life. Recurring themes include love, family, place, and time, but he does not consider himself a regional poet.

Personal life
Kooser lives on an acreage near the village of Garland, Nebraska. Kooser has served on the Lincoln Library Board. He was founding president of The Nebraska Literary Heritage Association.

Kooser is married to Kathleen Rutledge, former editor of the Lincoln Journal Star. They have one son and two grandchildren.

Books

 * Grass County. (1971).
 * Twenty Poems. (1973).
 * A Local Habitation and a Name. (1974).
 * Not Coming to Be Barked At. (1976).
 * Sure Signs: New and Selected Poems. (1980).
 * One World at a Time. (1985).
 * The Blizzard Voices (1986).
 * Weather Central. (1994).
 * A Book of Things. (1995).
 * Riding with Colonel Carter. (1999).
 * Winter Morning Walks: One Hundred Postcards to Jim Harrison. (2001).
 * Braided Creek: A Conversation in Poetry. (with Jim Harrison) (Copper Canyon Press, 2003).
 * Delights and Shadows. (Copper Canyon Press, 2004)
 * Local Wonders: Seasons in the Bohemian Alps (2004)
 * Flying At Night : Poems 1965-1985 (2005)
 * Lights on a Ground of Darkness: an evocation of place and time. (2005).
 * The Poetry Home Repair Manual: Practical Advice For Beginning Poets (2005).
 * The Poetry Home Repair Manual: Practical Advice For Beginning Poets (2005).

 * Bag in the Wind (2010)
 * Pursuing Blackhawk (Cedar Creek Press, Mason City, 2012)
 * House Held Up by Trees (2012)
 * Splitting an Order (Copper Canyon Press, 2014)
 * The Bell in the Bridge (2016)
 * Kindest Regards: New and Selected Poems (Copper Canyon Press, 2018)
 * Red Stilts (Copper Canyon Press, 2020)
 * Cotton Candy: Poems Dipped Out of the Air (University of Nebraska Press, 2022)

title: Ted Kooser


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Leslie Stevens

Leslie Clark Stevens IV (February 3, 1924 – April 24, 1998) was an American producer, writer, and director. He created two television series for the ABC network, The Outer Limits (1963–1965) and Stoney Burke (1962–63), and Search (1972–73) for NBC. Stevens was the director of the horror film Incubus (1966), which stars William Shatner, and was the second film to use the Esperanto language. He wrote an early work of New Age philosophy, est: The Steersman Handbook (1970).

Biography
Stevens was born in Washington, D.C. His interest in science was sparked when he studied for the United States Naval Academy at the behest of his father, Leslie Clark Stevens III, an admiral in the United States Navy. But the Broadway theater intrigued him more than a military career, and he headed for New York as a fledgling writer. He sold his play The Mechanical Rat, to Orson Welles's Mercury Theatre and ran away from home to join the troupe before being returned home by truant officers.

During World War II, he repudiated family tradition by serving in the United States Army Air Forces, becoming a captain at the age of 20. He attended Yale's Drama Department following the war.

His first play Bullfight starring Hurd Hatfield opened off Broadway in 1954. It was followed by The Champagne Complex the following year. His play The Lovers (1956), starring Joanne Woodward, was later filmed as The War Lord (1965). He wrote the Broadway comedy The Marriage-Go-Round (1956), which he adapted to the screen, and produced, as a starring vehicle for Susan Hayward, which was released in 1961. He wrote the screenplay for the film The Left Handed Gun (1958) directed by Arthur Penn and starring Paul Newman. Other films which Stevens produced, and directed and wrote included Hero's Island (1962) starring James Mason, and Private Property (1960) starring Corey Allen, Warren Oates and his then-wife Kate Manx. He also directed the feature film Incubus (1966), which was filmed entirely in the constructed language Esperanto.

Through Daystar Productions, Stevens created the television series Stoney Burke, followed by The Outer Limits which he supervised as executive producer and wrote or directed a handful of episodes, including the pilot The Galaxy Being in which Stevens supplied the voice of the extraterrestrial. His longest-lasting relationship was film composer Dominic Frontiere, who served many years working with Daystar Productions as production executive.

Stevens was writer, director and executive producer of the pilot film and major episodes of It Takes a Thief and McCloud and wrote and produced installments for the series The Invisible Man and Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (which he co-developed with Glen A. Larson). He also produced the first-season Tony Franciosa episodes of The Name of the Game and the short-lived 1972–73 NBC science fiction series Search. Although only credited as supervising producer of "Saga of a Star-World" (the 1978 pilot episode of the Larson-produced Battlestar Galactica), director Alan J. Levi has alleged that "Stevens wrote the original script. Leslie was one of my best friends. I do know that Leslie had told me at one time way before he ever got into the script that he had this great idea for a script that he was going to take to Glen Larson and talk about."

Stevens also wrote for the revival show of The Outer Limits between 1996 and 1997.

Stevens's contributions to the New Age Movement, and its relationships to The Outer Limits are discussed in the book Taoism for Dummies (John Wiley and Sons Canada, 2013).

Stevens died from complications of an emergency angioplasty in 1998 in Los Angeles, California at the age of 74.

Quotes
There is nothing wrong with being a hack writer. I would point with pride to the inspired hacking of Shakespeare, Michelangelo—you can go through a big list. As a playwright, I achieved the rank of night clerk in a hotel at 22, night-ward attendant in a New York psychiatric hospital at 25 and the exalted status of copy boy for Time magazine at 28. These jobs paid my room rent while I was writing plays.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Leslie Stevens


text:
Battle of Château-Thierry (1918)

The Battle of Château-Thierry was fought on July 1, 1918 and was one of the first actions of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) under General John J. Pershing. It was a battle in World War I as part of the Second Battle of the Marne, initially prompted by a German Spring Offensive. German and local actions at Château-Thierry recommenced on May 31 to July 22, 1918, against the AEF, an American Expeditionary Force, consisting of troops from both the United States Army and Marine Corps units. These units from the 2nd US Division were the newest troops on the front in France and just barely out of training.

The AEF counter-offensive combat action at Château-Thierry was relatively brief starting on July 1, 1918 and lasting for less than a week and was part of the allied effort to push back the recent German advance. American forces had linked up with their French allies at the Marne River on June 3, 1918 and had forced the Germans back across the river. This set the stage for the action at Château-Thierry and at the Battle of Belleau Wood. However, the later action raged for another three weeks.

Background
Despite the revolution in Russia, fortune seemed to favor the Allies with the arrival of the Americans in France. However, these troops needed time to train before they could be combat effective. Recognizing the window of opportunity, General Ludendorff consolidated the manpower freed up from the Eastern Front to conduct Operation Michael in order to split the Allies' lines. The successes of the German stormtrooper infiltration tactics earned Germany approximately 40 miles of territory. But the offensive lost momentum when it surpassed its supply lines.

From the arrival of the first American troops in France, General John Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Force, had refused to hand over his divisions to either British or French commanders, insisting on keeping them together as one army. Regular Army Buffalo Soldiers, African American ("colored") troops led by mainly white officers, of the four regiments of the 92nd and the 93rd infantry divisions, fought only under French command for the duration of the war, although experienced Black non-commissioned officers(NCOs) were often provided to other segregated volunteer units under American command – such as the 317th Engineer Battalion.

Although he was determined to keep American troops under American command, in the face of the success of the German onslaught, Pershing relented and sent a portion of his army to assist the French in blocking the German advance in May 1918.

Prelude
Looking to expel British forces from Flanders, Ludendorff sought to divert the Allies' French reserves away from the region. In his Operation Blucher, Ludendorff aimed some of his forces at the Chemin des Dames and took the French Sixth Army by surprise. Driving on, the Germans were soon at the Marne River, situated under 50 miles from Paris. With Marshal Ferdinand Foch unable to acquire British assistance, General Pershing's chief of operation, Colonel Fox Conner, recognized the gravity of the situation and ordered the 3rd Division to block them.

The 3rd Division occupied the main bridge on the south bank of the Marne River that led in Château-Thierry on 31 May 1918 as the French 10th Colonial Division rendezvoused with them from the north bank. The Americans positioned their machine guns to cover the French retreat, and had a unit led by Lt. John Bissell situated north of the second bridge. The French spent the night adding explosives to the bridges to destroy them. Early the following morning, 1 June, the Germans advanced into Château-Thierry from the north, forcing the French to the main bridge, which they defended with the support of American machine-gun fire. The French succeeded in destroying the bridge as the Americans kept up their fire on the Germans. Lt. Bissell's group was still on the north side of the Marne. They worked their way back to the secondary bridge in-between American machine-gun fire and made it across, along with a group of Germans that were captured shortly afterwards. From the north of the Marne on 2 June, the Germans engaged in heavy artillery and sniper fire against the Allies. They made an attempt to take the remaining bridge but were forced to end the assault as the casualties rose.

Counter-Offensive action
On the morning of 1 July 1918, the combined French and American forces, under the overall direction of Allied Generalissimo Ferdinand Foch, launched a general counter-assault on a 40 km wide front between Fontenoy and Château-Thierry, the first Allied offensive in the area in over a year. The American army played a role fighting for the regions around Soissons and Château-Thierry, in collaboration with predominantly French forces. The 3rd Brigade of the 2nd US Division led the attack on the strategic town of Vaux. The Allies had managed to keep their plans a secret, and their attack took the Germans by surprise. The troops went "Over the Top" without a preparatory artillery bombardment, but instead followed closely behind a synchronized rolling barrage. The assaults penetrated German lines and individual American units exercised initiative and continued fighting despite being nominally behind enemy lines. The town of Vaux was in American hands by the end of the day.

Memorials
After World War I, a memorial was built on Hill 204, 2 miles (3 km.) west of the town for which it is named. The Château-Thierry Monument, designed by Paul P. Cret of Philadelphia, was constructed by the American Battle Monuments Commission "to commemorate the sacrifices and achievements of American and French fighting men in the region, and the friendship and cooperation of French and American forces during World War I."

There is also a monument in front of the Bronx County Courthouse in New York City that was presented by the American Legion on 11 November 1940. The monument consists of the "Keystone from an arch of the old bridge at Château-Thierry," which the monument notes was "Gloriously and successfully defended by American troops."

The first Filipino to die in World War I was Private Tomas Mateo Claudio who served with the U.S. Army as part of the American Expeditionary Forces to Europe. He died in the Battle of Chateau Thierry in France on 29 June 1918. The Tomas Claudio Memorial College in Morong Rizal, Philippines, which was founded in 1950, was named in his honor.

In Literature
Walter Charles Robert's 1937 play Red Harvest is set at American Red Cross Hospital 111, a field hospital in Jouy-sur-Morin, during the Battle of Château-Thierry. Based on the diary of an American Red Cross nurse at the battle, the hospital staff experiences air raids and shell fire while attempting to the save the lives of wounded soldiers, many of them difficult surgical cases.

A chapter in Ken Follett's 2010 historical novel Fall of Giants is devoted to The Battle of Château-Thierry, depicted alternately from the point of view of a German character and an American one. Follett's account emphasizes the fact that the Americans were freshly arrived and for most of them this was the first experience of combat - yet they stood well the "baptism of fire" and were able to confront the far more experienced German troops.

title: Battle of Château-Thierry (1918)


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William Shew

William Shew (1820–1903) was a prominent American photographer in the 19th century. He made a name for himself as a Daguerrotype portrait artist in the United States. He maintained a mobile studio in a wagon that he called his "Daguerrotype Saloon."

Shew was born near Watertown, New York on 23 March 1820. He studied daguerrotype photography with Samuel F. B. Morse, as did his brothers Truman, Jacob, and Myron. All four of the Shew brothers worked for photographer John Plumbe, who opened studios in various cities; William Shew worked in Plumbe's Boston studio from 1841 to 1844 before setting up his own daguerreian case manufacturing business, William Shew and Company, and pursuing studio work in partnership with daguerreotypist Marsena Cannon. In this period, Shew was a member of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society.

In 1851, Shew followed his brother Jacob to California and set up a studio in San Francisco; he became well known for his portrait work. He was recruited by John Wesley Jones to take daguerreotypes of California for Jones's planned Great Pantoscope of California, the Rocky Mountains, Salt Lake City, Nebraska and Kansas. In 1851, he set up the "Moveable Daguerreotype Saloon" on Dupont Street, later moving it to a lot on Washington Street, opposite the Alta California newspaper office. He later occupied studios in more orthodox addresses along Clay, Montgomery, and Kearny streets. He is presumed the author of a July 1854 article "Photography" in The Pioneer, or, California Monthly Magazine in which he commented on the current state of photographic art and daguerreotype studios.

When Japan's first diplomatic mission to the United States arrived in San Francisco in 1860, a young Yukichi Fukuzawa, then part of the embassy staff, sat for a photo in Shew's studio, in what would become one of the most famous photographs in early Japanese history as it also featured Shew's daughter Theodora, one of the first photographs of a Caucasian woman seen in Japan.

Shew was active in local political and social groups in the 1850s and 1860s, holding the first San Francisco Free-Soil Convention at his rooms on the Plaza (8 October 1852); he served briefly on the Board of Education and hosted meetings of the Temperance Society. He was the most successful of the Shew brothers in photography; Truman died young (1848), Jacob suffered financial losses and committed suicide in 1879, and Myron worked in a variety of jobs including photography, manufacturing, and merchandising.

Shew was married twice. In 1847 he married Elizabeth Marie Studley (1819-1889) in Boston; their daughter Theodora Alice was born in 1848. After Elizabeth's death from typhoid in 1889, Shew and Annie Katherine Haven (1849-1930) were married in San Francisco in 1891. Shew died in San Francisco on 5 February 1903.

title: William Shew