POETRY
SEPTEMBER 2016
The Little Bird Nesters, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (1873-1874), {PD-US}
A Summer Linden
by TED KOOSER
This tree has a thousand little windows
that it throws open in the fall, but today
it’s closed its painted shutters over them
and the rooms are shadowy and cool
but for the one in which an oriole
has pulled its perch up to its fire.
Ted Kooser
Ted Kooser is the author of numerous collections of poetry and books of nonfiction. His many honors include two NEA fellowships in poetry, a Pushcart Prize, the Stanley Kunitz Prize from Columbia, the Boatwright Prize from Shenandoah, the Pulitzer Prize, and an appointment as US Poet Laureate, which he served from 2004 to 2006. He is a professor in the English department at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.