Searching For Ted Kooser ~ a poet laureate

Today is a dark day for poetry. Rus Bowden of Poetry & Poets in Rags broke the story at SplashHall Poetry late last night. I figured this is great, I will cover this story for the next couple days. After all this is a great event, isn't it?

Well that was late last night and after sending emails to a few blogging friends and suggesting it as a story for the good people at BoingBoing, supposing the holy grail for the Great Blogosphere, I went to bed.

This morning I got up at 5:30 am, fixed a cup of my organic coffee, turned on my computer and opened up my new email toy Mozilla Thunderbird and checked my email for any response to my announcement of our, USA, new Poet Laureate Ted Kooser. There was one out of about twelve, a young lady from Wales, Ivy Alvarez, who seemed as enthused as me. I figured the others would come shortly. Next I opened up my usual two "tabbed browsers" Mozilla Firefox and MyIE2 now known as "Maxthon" and began my update search for news on Poet Laureate Ted Kooser.

First I went to BoingBoing, nothing there 'sigh', there was a story about crapping, DVD's, Olympic brand-whoring and Big backpacks are bad news, I guess all more important and interesting than a new poet laureate from the Great Plains, the Heart of America so-to-speak. Next I went toUSA Today nothing there either, just the usual ragged-over news we hear everyday. Although after doing a search at Google I did find they stuck it in the corner of their book section, you know the section right? um yea right. Next I went to The Academy of American Poets, they had a oneliner way down near the bottom of the page, "Nebraskan Ted Kooser named next Poet Laureate." and a link to a short bio of Ted Kooser. Again, I guess a new poet laureate is even very important to one of the largest poetry sites on the net.

Among several other major news and poetry sites which had nothing. I repeat nothing! about this man. This great honor and accomplishment in poetry. I remembered Rus had said AbleMuse had a good discussion going on about Ted Kooser. They sure did, it appeared he was one of their favorite poets. Yet not one mention that Kooser is the new poet laureate. In fact besides supposing being one of their favorite poets, if you entered the Able Muse Boards from the home page, one would be hard pressed to even find Ted Kooser there.

So what's my point here. It's like this.. "Why is such a great art and literary form so minimal," in our great american culture? Barely even being recognized by poets and poetry topics themselves. Why aren't our schools making poetry a required curriculum beginning in grade school. Not only is it a beautiful form of art, but students and teachers alike could use it as a great learning tool. Word Power. Creativity in speech and writing. No wonder american students are turned off by the our learning process. No wonder kids turn to the streets for their creative knowledge. When adults, including the websites mentions above and many I searched and didn't mention, don't even make art their curriculum. Let alone, we don't even acknowledge a great honor as Poet Laureate and the average american man that gets to wear it's title.

Congratulations Mr Ted Kooser, Poet Laureate! This surely is a dark day for american culture and those who profess poetry. However, Mr Ted Kooser, Poet Laureate USA, this is a grand day for you. I am inspired to search your truth and talent.