Lyric Life

Ted Kooser has been called part of the "Midwestern poetry revival" in the U.S., his poems plainsong truth-telling that somehow avoid the pitfalls (and pratfalls?) of academic poetry. But this poem, "The Old People," is definitely full of classical and poetic allusions. It also has a complicated structure. In other words, all that "plainsong" stuff is sitting over some very heady material. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as I take a look at this poem from Kooser's Pulitzer Prize-winning collection, DELIGHTS & SHADOWS.