Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate from 2004 to 2006. Photo by UNL Publications and Photography.

I’ve spent my 70 years on The Great Plains and have lived all that time amidst vivid and touching stories about the settlement of our area, lots of them much like this one, about a long ago courtship and marriage, offered to us in a poem by James Doyle, who lives in Colorado.

Love Story

The kitchen door opens onto dirt

and the second half of the country

all the way to the Pacific. Rusted

prairie trains out of the tall weeds

elbow the last century aside, rumble

from every direction towards Chicago.

My great-grandfather, who would be

150 years old today, put on his one

tall hat and took the big trip

to Omaha for my great-grandma

with the family ring on his vest

and winter wheat lying wait in seed.

He gave her all the miles he had

and she gave him the future I walk

around in every day. The mountains

were too far west to count so they

doubled back over the land and century

and the real weather kept coming from them.

Ted Kooser was US Poet Laureate from 2004 to 2006. He is a professor in the English Department of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He lives on an acreage near the village of Garland, Nebraska, with his wife Kathleen Rutledge, the editor of the Lincoln Journal Star.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),

publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of

Nebraska, Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2009 by Donal Heffernan, whose most recent book of poetry is

“Duets of Motion,” Lone Oak Press, 2001. Poem reprinted by permission of Donal Heffernan.

Introduction copyright ©2010 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

American Life in Poetry ©2006 The Poetry Foundation

Contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.

The event will be held from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at the Clearlake Oaks Moose Lodge, located at the corner of Highway 20 and Highway 53.

Join them for an event featuring music, food and fun to help support substance abuse treatment in Lake County.

Headliners will include Bill Noteman and the Rockets, Blues Farm, Blue Collar Band and Captive Bold, with other bands to follow.

There also will be a bouncy house for kids, dunk tank, barbecue and a raffle for items including a night at Featherbed Railroad Bed & Breakfast.

Tickets cost $12 per person.

For ticket information call 707-987-9972.

Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate from 2004 to 2006. Photo by UNL Publications and Photography.

I love to sit outside and be very still until some little creature appears and begins to go about its business, and here is another poet, Robert Gibb, of Pennsylvania, doing just the same thing.

For the Chipmunk in My Yard

I think he knows I’m alive, having come down

The three steps of the back porch

And given me a good once over. All afternoon

He’s been moving back and forth,

Gathering odd bits of walnut shells and twigs,

While all about him the great fields tumble

To the blades of the thresher. He’s lucky

To be where he is, wild with all that happens.

He’s lucky he’s not one of the shadows

Living in the blond heart of the wheat.

This autumn when trees bolt, dark with the fires

Of starlight, he’ll curl among their roots,

Wanting nothing but the slow burn of matter

On which he fastens like a small, brown flame.

Ted Kooser was US Poet Laureate from 2004 to 2006. He is a professor in the English Department of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He lives on an acreage near the village of Garland, Nebraska, with his wife Kathleen Rutledge, the editor of the Lincoln Journal Star.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),

publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of

Nebraska, Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2009 by Donal Heffernan, whose most recent book of poetry is

“Duets of Motion,” Lone Oak Press, 2001. Poem reprinted by permission of Donal Heffernan.

Introduction copyright ©2010 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

American Life in Poetry ©2006 The Poetry Foundation

Contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.

The show takes place Nov. 12-14.

The group is looking for fine art, fine crafts and folk art.

The deadline for jurying work is Oct. 18.

If you are interested in jurying for this show, or need more information please contact Alana Clearlake, 707-928-8565 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Librarian of Congress James H. Billington and David M. Rubenstein, who this year gave the festival a $5 million gift, are co-chairs of the new National Book Festival Board.

Festival-goers celebrated creativity and imagination with their favorite authors, illustrators and poets in standing-room-only pavilions, including Let’s Read America; the Pavilion of the States; Children; Teens & Children; Fiction & Mystery; Poetry & Prose; History & Biography; and the Library of Congress pavilion, which featured programs such as the Veterans History Project and demonstrations by Library staff about how people can preserve their own books, photos and audiovisual materials. Authors also signed books for long lines of their fans.

"This year the National Book Festival is celebrating a decade of words and wonder, giving nearly 1 million people the opportunity to interact directly with some of the most gifted and most popular authors of our time, and millions more to enjoy the experience online," Billington said. "Thanks to Mr. Rubenstein and all of our sponsors and supporters, this national tradition will continue for years to come."

More than 70 best-selling authors, poets and illustrators gave presentations including Isabel Allende, Ken Follett, Michele Norris, Suzanne Collins, Laura Bush, Jonathan Franzen, Brad Meltzer, Jane Smiley, David Remnick, Craig Robinson, Anchee Min, Pat Mora, Jules Feiffer, Elizabeth Kostova, Scott Turow, Judith Viorst, Peter Straub, Gordon S. Wood, Diana Gabaldon, Martha Grimes, Timothy Egan, Bruce Feiler, Wil Haygood and Spike Mendelsohn.

For those who were unable to attend the festival or missed a pavilion, the authors’ presentations are available as webcasts on the festival homepage (www.loc.gov/bookfest).

Highlights of the festival included:

• The launch of "Gateway to Knowledge," a traveling exhibit on a tractor-trailer that will visit some 60 communities across America, sponsored by the Abby and Emily Rapoport Foundation. (www.loc.gov/gateway);

• A "readers' theater" presentation led by National Ambassador for Young People's Literature Katherine Paterson of the final chapter of "The Exquisite Corpse Adventure," a year-long, serialized story written by many beloved children's authors and illustrated by notable artists. The story can be found online exclusively at www.read.gov.

• The Digital Bookmobile, a high-tech exhibit powered by OverDrive, which supports reading and literacy with eBooks from libraries, for the second year in a row enabled visitors to browse a public library’s website, sample popular eBooks, audiobooks, music and video titles, and learn how to download and try out supported mobile devices.

• Children sang along with PBS KIDS’ SteveSongs, enjoyed Read Alouds with Martha from Martha Speaks, and posed for pictures with PBS KIDS characters from the cast of Super Why, Abby Cadabby from "Sesame Street," Buddy from "Dinosaur Train," and other favorite characters such as Curious George, Clifford the Big Red Dog, and the Cat in the Hat.

• Target, a charter sponsor of the National Book Festival, featured "Mail from the Mall," where festival-goers got their pictures taken in front of a green screen and had their image incorporated into the book festival poster and put on a postcard.

• Reporters and editors from Charter Sponsor The Washington Post introduced several of the author presentations.

• Authors posed for photos with festival-goers in the Pavilion of the States, which featured information about reading- and literacy-promotion programs and literary events in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and the U.S. trusts and territories.

The 2010 National Book Festival is made possible through the generous support of Co-Chairman, National Book Festival Board David M. Rubenstein; Charter Sponsors Target and The Washington Post; Patrons AT&T, Institute of Museum and Library Services, The James Madison Council, the National Endowment for the Arts and PBS KIDS Raising Readers; Contributors Borders, Digital Bookmobile powered by OverDrive, Penguin Group (USA), ReadAloud.org, Scholastic Inc. and the Library of Congress Federal Credit Union; and Friends The Hay-Adams, the Marshall B. Coyne Foundation and National Endowment for the Humanities. Thanks also to C-SPAN2’s Book TV and The Junior League of Washington.