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Celebrated poets Ted Kooser along with Connie Wanek, and illustrator Richard Jones, explore figures of speech in a spirited and magical way―and invite our imaginations out to play.A freewheeling romp through the world of imagery and metaphor, this quietly startling collection of thirty poems, framed by the four elements, is about art and reality, fact and fancy. Look around: what do you see? A clown balancing a pie in a tree, or an empty nest perched on a leafless branch? As poet Connie Wanek alludes to in her afterword―a lively dialogue with former US Poet Laureate Ted Kooser―sometimes the simplest sights and sounds “summon our imaginations” and cry out to be clothed in the alchemical language of poetry. This compendium of the fleeting and unexpected turns the everyday―turtles, trees, and tadpoles; cow pies, lazy afternoons, and pillowy white marshmallows―into poetic gold. A brilliant and timeless collaboration that evokes both the mystery and grandeur of the natural world and the coz

“Kooser . . . must be the most accessible and enjoyable major poet in America. His lines are so clear and simple.” —Michael Dirda, The Washington Post“Nothing escapes him; everything is illuminated.”

"There is a sense of quiet amazement at the core of all Kooser's work."?The Washington Post"Kooser's ability to discover the smallest detail and render it remarkable is a rare gift."?Bloomsbury Review

Ted Kooser sees a writer’s workbooks as the stepping-stones on which a poet makes his way across the stream of experience toward a poem. Because those wobbly stones are only inches above the quotidian

For Valentine's Day 1986, Ted Kooser wrote "Pocket Poem" and sent the tender, thoughtful composition to fifty women friends, starting an annual tradition that would persist for the next twenty-one yea