AMERICAN LIFE IN POETRY

Yesterday I happened to be looking at the Sunday edition of the Des Moines Register--I was actually looking for the crossword puzzle--and I found the weekly poetry column, "American Life in Poetry", edited by the current American Poet Laureate, Ted Kooser. This is a project that Mr. Kooser is promoting to bring American poetry to the attention of the average person, to make poetry a part of daily life, not just something most people only have contact with in school. Underwritten by The Poetry Foundation, this column is offered FREE to any newspaper that would be interested in using it. In the column, Laureate Kooser comments briefly on that particular week's poem, usually a rather short verse on some aspect of American life. Unfortunately, so far as I can tell, no local area papers have taken advantage of this offer, although around 80 other papers across the country have elected to publish the column. For interested poetry-lovers, the poems and comments are available on-line at the "American Life in Poetry" web site.