Like Wallace Stevens, Ted Kooser made his living as an insurance company executive, retiring from Lincoln Benefit Life only recently. Unlike Stevens, Kooser writes for everyman in an accessible and non-literary manner. Considered one of Nebraska's leading poets, Kooser was born to merchant Ted, Sr. and Vera Moser Kooser in 1939 in Ames, Iowa, and educated in the Ames public school system. AtIowa State University in Ames he took his BS in English Education in 1962. Six years later he received an MA in English from the University ofNebraska at Lincoln. Both Iowa and Nebraska are Great Plains states, and with their flat expanse, and relatively small populations, they provides stargazers with a view of the heavens unob-scured by city lights and smog. Light, particularly starlight and moonlight, is a recurring image in many of Kooser's poems.

Kooser married Diana Tressler, a teacher, and had a son, Jeffrey...