Winter Morning Walks: 100 Postcards to Jim Harrison

by Ted Kooser

A collection of poetry by Ted Kooser.

Genres: Poetry, Nature, Nonfiction, Environment, Adult, Literature

120 pages, Paperback

First published November 27, 2000

About the author

Ted Kooser lives in rural Nebraska with his wife, Kathleen, and three dogs. He is one of America's most noted poets, having served two terms as U. S. Poet Laureate and, during the second term, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his collection, Delights & Shadows. He is a retired life insurance executive who now teaches part-time at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln. The school board in Lincoln, Nebraska, recently opened Ted Kooser Elementary School, which Ted says is his greatest honor, among many awards and distinctions. He has published twelve collections of poetry and three nonfiction books. Two of the latter are books on writing, The Poetry Home Repair Manual and Writing Brave and Free, and a memoir, Lights on a Ground of Darkness (all from University of Nebraska Press. Bag in the Wind from Candlewick is his first children's book, with which he is delighted. "It's wonderful," Ted said, "to be writing for young people. I am reinventing myself at age 70."

Reviews

[Dave Schaafsma · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some poems from Winter Morning Walks: 100 Postcards to Jim Harrison, by Ted Kooser:

1. Perfectly Still This Solstice Morning

Perfectly still this solstice morning,

in bone-cracking cold. Nothing moving,

or so one might think, but as I walk the road,

the wind held in the heart of every tree

flows to the end of each twig and forms a bud.

2. When I Switched On a Light

When I switched on a light in the barn loft

late last night, I frightened four flickers

hanging inside, peering out through their holes.
Confused by the light, they began to fly
wildly from one end to the other,

their yellow wings slapping the tin sheets

of the roof, striking the walls, scrabbling
and falling. I cut the light
and stumbled down and out the door and stood

in the silent dominion of starlight

till all five of our hearts settled down.

3. Walking by Flashlight

Walking by flashlight

at six in the morning, 

my circle of light on the gravel 

swinging side to side, 

coyote, raccoon, field mouse, sparrow,
each watching from darkness

this man with the moon on a leash.

4. I Saw a Dust Devil This Morning

I saw a dust devil this morning, 

doing a dance with veils of cornshucks

in front of an empty farmhouse,

a magical thing, and I remembered 

walking the beans in hot midsummer,

how we’d see one swirling toward us

over the field, a spiral of flying leaves

forty or fifty feet high, clear as a glass

of cold water just out of reach,

and we’d drop our hoes and run to catch it,

shouting and laughing, hurdling the beans,

and if one of us was fast enough,

and lucky, he’d run along inside the funnel, 

where the air was strangely cool and still,

the soul and center of the thing,

the genie who swirls out of the bottle,

eager to grant one wish to each of us.

I had a hundred thousand wishes then.

5. My Wife and I Walk the Cold Road

My wife and I walk the cold road

in silence, asking for thirty more years
.
There’s a pink and blue sunrise

with an accent of red:

a hunter’s cap burns like a coal

in the yellow-gray eye of the woods.

6. All Night, in Gusty Winds

All night, in gusty winds,

the house has cupped its hands around

the steady candle of our marriage,

the two of us braided together in sleep,

and burning, yes, but slowly, 

giving off just enough light so that one of us, 

awakening frightened in darkness,

can see.

7. Our Finch Feeder

Our finch feeder, full of thistle seed

oily and black as ammunition,

swings wildly in the wind, and the finches 

olive drab like little commandos
 cling to the perches, six birds at a time,

ignoring the difficult ride.

8. Spring, the Sky Rippled with Geese

Spring, the sky rippled with geese,

but the green comes on slowly,

timed to the ticking of downspouts.
The pond, still numb from months

of ice, reflects just one enthusiast 

this morning, a budding maple

whose every twig is strung with beads

of carved cinnabar, bittersweet red.

9. How Important It Must Be

How important it must be

to someone 

that I am alive, and walking,

and that I have written 

these poems.
This morning the sun stood

right at the end of the road

and waited for me.

Now, if you will, read Kooser’s explanation of how the poetry came about:

“In the autumn of 1998, during my recovery from surgery and radiation for cancer, I began taking a two-mile walk each morning. I’d been told by my radiation oncologist to stay out of the sun for a year because of skin sensitivity, so I exercised before dawn, hiking the isolated country roads near where I live, sometimes with my wife but most often alone.

During the previous summer, depressed by my illness, preoccupied by the routines of my treatment, and feeling miserably sorry for myself, I’d all but give up on reading and writing. Then, as autumn began to fade and winter came on, my health began to improve. One morning in November, following my walk, I surprised myself by trying my hand at a poem. Soon I was writing every day.

Several years before, my friend Jim Harrison and I had carried on a correspondence in haiku. As a variation on this, I began pasting my morning poems on postcards and sending them to Jim, whose generosity, patience, and good humor are here acknowledged. What follows is a selection of 100 of those postcards.”

Now, take a glance at those poems again and see if you don’t see them/hear them differently.

I also read the letter exchange poems of Harrison and Kooser, haikus across the miles, and liked them. Harrison is now dead, RIP, just the summer of 2016; Kooser is not. Nor are Dawn Upshaw, an opera singer, and Maria Schneider, a composer, two fellow cancer survivors and the central collaborators of a wonderful project that emerged out of the reading of these poems. The music is haunting and gorgeous. Reminds me of the joyous melancholy of Joni Mitchell’s Blue. Some of the music is instrumental, with rich cello and violin and voice. Haunting and inspiring. Oh, and they use the very poems you read above, in that sequence, beginning with fall equinox and ending with spring. Yep, he started to feel better that year.

Here's an NPR piece on the musical project that emerged out of the poems, and sure, you get to hear some of it, which will hook you on it:

http://www.npr.org/sections/deceptive...

Here’s another piece, related:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/st...

This is a link to the actual album:

https://www.amazon.com/Winter-Morning...

Thanks for reminding me about about Kooser, Luis Urrea. I loved this so much. With special interest, perhaps, for all my friends and family who are--or who are close to--cancer survivors (which is what, all of us?). And to poets and musicians and artists everywhere who enrich our lives with hope and grace and beauty. The CD of the music comes with all the poems. If I were you, I'd get that in your hands in preparation for the winter, or yours. Oh, and it's not really about cancer, actually. It's about life. I have given this book to many people now. I read this again this morning, no longer guessing about whether I have/had cancer, because I now am a survivor of a fairly serious bout with melanoma, which makes the reading of these poems even more vivid and powerful and enriching.

PS: Update 1/11/23: I am now a survivor myself of cancer, a bout of fairly serious melanoma, a large patch on my shoulder, with a year of vigorous attention from various medical people, and I am now okay. No radiation. Yet. And I have given this book and this cd to more than a dozen people, friends of mine, all of whom are still hanging on, knock wood.

[Bill on GR Sabbatical · Rating 4 out of 5]

On mornings like this, as hours before dawn
I walk the dark hall of the road
with my life creaking under my feet, I sometimes
take hold of the cold porcelain knob
of the moon, and turn it, and step into a room
warm and yellow, and take my seat
at a small wooden table with a border of painted pansies,
and wait for my mother to bring me my bowl.

To avoid the sun, as advised by his oncologist, following cancer surgery and radiation, Kooser walked two miles on country roads near his Nebraska home every day before dawn, starting in the autumn of 1998. He'd drifted away from reading and writing during treatment, but the walking inspired him to begin writing poems again by November. He decided to write one every day and mail it on a postcard to his friend and fellow poet, the late Jim Harrison. They are variations on the theme of walking early in the morning, but late in the year and in life, observing the weather, moon and stars, hawks and rabbits, trees, his dogs, and signs of neighbors on the land and family on his memory. A strong and atmospheric collection.

How important it must be
to someone
that I am alive, and walking,
and that I have written
these poems.
This morning the sun stood
right at the end of the road
and waited for me.

I also recommend Braided Creek: A Conversation in Poetry, a collection of 300 haiku-like poems shared by Kooser, who was U.S. Poet Laureate 2014-2016, and Harrison, in a longstanding correspondence.

[Jerrie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I deeply enjoyed this collection of short poems. Written during a time when the author was undergoing cancer treatments and had to avoid strong sunlight, early morning winter walks were his only chance to be outside. The poems are short because they were made to fit on a postcard that he sent to a fellow poet. These short observations of the landscape and wildlife reflect the author’s pensive mood and love of the world around him.

[Ray Nessly · Rating 5 out of 5]

"the eye contains the world, in a space no bigger than a baby’s fist"
—Ted Kooser

[edit: just added to the read -while- walking shelf, which I’d forgotten to do. I read the second half, actually, not all of the book, while walking. Always gets me some looks from strangers, but what’s so odd about it? I read a few lines, put it down, give it some thought, read a few more lines … And for this title, very appropriate. Other people have their faces in their phones …]

Ted Kooser’s Winter Morning Walks: one hundred postcards to Jim Harrison, is remindful of another outstanding collection that I loved, Braided Creek. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
The latter, too, consisted of correspondence between the poets, Kooser and Jim Harrison, but it's two-way, and the collection is a collaboration. For this collection, Kooser's poems are the result of early-morning walks in the cold and in darkness, under doctor's orders to avoid sunlight while he recovered from cancer. It was written in the winter of 1998-1999. He went on to become Poet Laureate of the U.S, for several years, and is still with us, almost twenty-five years on. These are largely nature poems, short and very accessible. Not surprisingly, a few are personal and reflect on his illness. About three of them are of the whistling-past-graveyard types. Very few touch on relationships. As I recall his dogs get as many mentions as his wife. (No judgment of course, just something I noticed.)
This book is so good, I’ll probably reread it. So for the benefit of my future self, my faves are november 18, 30 ; december 2, 13, 18, 22; january 19,21; february 4, 7, 25,; march 2, 10,11, and 18 & 20—the last two poems.

Samples:
------
february 25

Sunny. The sun melting back.


The long, slanting light of midwinter shines
back at itself
from the tinned-over door of an old barn
among dead trees.

How many millions of miles has it traveled
only to find this dented mirror,
and then to have to pay these cottonwoods in silver.

----
march 18

Gusty and warm.


I saw the season's first bluebird
this morning, one month ahead
of its scheduled arrival. Lucky I am
to go off to my cancer appointment
having been given a bluebird, and,
for a lifetime, having been given
this world.
-----

january 21

Cloudy and still.


On the sunny, southerly face
of a cutbank, a badger
has scooped a new burrow,
turning the slope inside out and pouring it full
of the very worst kind of darkness,
the kind animals own, like the mad black slit in a goat’s eye.
-----

february 4

Clear and windy.

I saw a dust devil this morning, 

doing a dance with veils of cornshucks

in front of an empty farmhouse,

a magical thing, and I remembered 

walking the beans in hot midsummer,

how we’d see one swirling toward us

over the field, a spiral of flying leaves

forty or fifty feet high, clear as a glass

of cold water just out of reach,

and we’d drop our hoes and run to catch it,

shouting and laughing, hurdling the beans,

and if one of us was fast enough,

and lucky, he’d run along inside the funnel, 

where the air was strangely cool and still,

the soul and center of the thing,

the genie who swirls out of the bottle,

eager to grant one wish to each of us.

I had a hundred thousand wishes then.

[Ken]

Not as good as other Kooser books I've read, but still kind of cool, especially in light of their origin. Kooser wrote these poems as he was recovering from surgery for cancer in 1998.

Then he taped them to postcards (pre-email, I suppose) and sent them daily to his buddy Jim Harrison (also a writer). Wouldn't I like to find these in the mailbox every day for three months running! Dream and on.

Most all are short. Most all deal with nature. As he could not go out in the sun due to meds, Kooser walked in the pre-dawn darkness two miles every day.

We are brothers in boots on that count. I walk the dog in pre-dawn darkness daily, too. Not two miles, though. I've got work to get to. And eggs to fry. (Hey, better than axes to grind.)

As you might expect, some of the poems have themes of mortality, a theme that interests me keenly because I am mortal:


november 14

My wife and I walk the cold road
in silence, asking for thirty more years.

There's a pink and blue sunrise
with an accent of red:
a hunter's cap burns like a coal
in the yellow-gray eye of the woods.


Here's another variation, also from the november batch, which I found stronger:


november 28

There was a time
when my long gray cashmere topcoat
was cigarette smoke,
and my snappy felt homborg
was alcohol,
and the paisley silk scarf at my neck,
with its fringed end
tossed carelessly over my shoulder,
was laughter rich with irony.
Look at me now.


In addition, between every date and poem, Kooser provides a brief weather observation (e.g. sunny and pleasant, clear and still, ten degrees at sunrise, light snow flying). Thus, you get more of that old-time postcard feel.

So, yeah. A nice run of short stuff. Almost like poem-a-day drills, only by a master -- one who sent them before he could revise them. I think.

[Rita · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are many books of poetry that must be read silently and alone, and then there are rare books of poetry, like Ted Kooser's Winter Morning Walks, that can be shared, read to each other while eating breakfast in bed, even crying with each other about the beauty of the writing. These short poems are reader-friendly without ever compromising the high integrity of what a great poem can be.

[Jan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm giving this book a five-star rating because I know I will keep the book, I know I will re-read it, and I know I will urge it upon the appropriate friends. I am new to Ted Kooser's work but will be looking for more. I probably don't mind the persistent focus on winter weather because it matches my own interest and mood. I suspect the focus on winter reflects his sense of very recently hunkering down and surviving the "blizzard" of cancer and chemo, of recognizing that he is older, white-haired, and facing an inevitable chill as life's arc pulls him inevitably toward his final season. I'm eager to find more Kooser poetry now. Thank you to my friend who gave me this book, filled with amazing metaphors, for a recent Christmas gift.

[Gary Anderson]

While recovering from cancer treatment in 1998, former United States Poet Laureate Ted Kooser took a two-mile early-morning walk each day on the roads near his acreage in Nebraska. His midwinter observations of nature became poems that were then taped to postcards and mailed to his friend, the writer Jim Harrison. Each page of Winter Morning Walks: One Hundred Poems to Jim Harrison begins with the date and a brief note on that morning’s weather (“Clear and cool.” “Overcast, cold and still.”). In the poems that follow, Kooser notices narratives in stark winter scenes or animal activity and relates them to poignant memories or his own circumstances. I enjoyed savoring just a few of these poems each day, most of them–ironically–during a heat wave.

[Alyson Hagy · Rating 4 out of 5]

An austere, dignified volume of poems written--fairly quickly--from one poet to another. Kooser was being treated for cancer. The "conceit" of composing a daily poem that would fit on a postcard addressed to his friend Jim Harrison focused his wavering creativity during that difficult time. Some of the poems are truly exceptional. All of them are attentive. And this is the point. We are given gifts each and every day, even during terrible times. We just have to choose to see them. This is a book to share with all of the readers in your life.

[Rachel Hellman · Rating 5 out of 5]

A gift to finish this collection of poems on the Winter Solstice. This is my first book of poetry by Kooser, and I am hungry for more. There is so much lucidity, tenderness ,and dignity in his words. I feel close to God, to perfect mundanity, in reading these simple, profound, poems.

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gorgeous. Read this book in one sitting in front of a fireplace on a snowy afternoon, and it was just about perfect. One I will go back to again and again.

[Margaret · Rating 4 out of 5]

I always think it 's best to let the poet speak for himself:

Five below zero.

The cold finds its way through the wall
by riding nails, common ten-penny nails
through a wall so packed with insulation
it wouldn't admit a single quarter-note
from the wind's soprano solo. Yet you can touch
this solid wall and feel the icy spots
where the nails have carried the outside
almost into the house, nickel-sized spots
like the frosty tips of fingers, groping,
and you can imagine the face
of the cold, all wreathed in flying hair,
its long fingers spread, its thin blue lips
pressed into the indifferent ear
of the siding, whispering something
not one of us inside can hear.

[Jennie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovely series of poems written during a winter of daily pre-dawn walks. Kooser sent each poem on a postcard to a friend. Here's one that I like:

november 18

Cloudy, dark and windy.

Walking by flashlight
at six in the morning,
my circle of light on the gravel
swinging side to side,
coyote, raccoon, field mouse, sparrow,
each watching from darkness
this man with the moon on a leash.

[Jade Driscoll · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. I love the overarching concept behind this book--no intention to write a collection of poems, just writing daily poems to friends that *become* a cohesive collection--and that the author's general tone and thematic trends unintentionally moved with the seasons. Personally, I thought the poems in the first part ("november") and the final part ("march") were most impactful; broadly, these parts focused more on describing small and/or often-ignored moments in the natural world through both concrete and abstract imagery, as opposed to the other parts, which were more focused on using the natural world as the primary means of analogy for abstract and/or complex feelings. Normally, I'm kind of the opposite; I prefer poems I have to read several times to fully appreciate, and I write pretty abstract stuff myself. But Kooser's descriptions of small, quiet moments in the world that he normally wouldn't pay attention to made me feel calm, and they also made me want to write some small, quiet poems for myself. Not all poems need to change the world; most poems simply need to exist.

Favorite poems, in order of appearance:
- november 12
- november 26
- november 29
- december 2
- january 28
- march 20

[Bonny · Rating 4 out of 5]

Winter Morning Walks is a near-perfect collection of poems that Ted Kooser wrote on postcards and sent to his friend and fellow poet, the late Jim Harrison. Because he was undergoing treatment for cancer in 1998 and needed to avoid sunlight due to skin sensitivity, Kooser took walks in the early morning and composed these observational, reflective, and meditative poems. They have made wonderfully calm reading during this winter season, and it's a book I'll keep nearby to reread. These are poems full of gratitude, humility and hope. This year I also hope to read Braided Creek: A Conversation in Poetry: Expanded Anniversary Edition, Kooser's and Harrison's conversations in haiku.

[Chad Poz · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite book of poetry so far. Beautiful descriptions of winter and of the peaceful solitude of life. Can’t wait to read it again next winter.

[Terri · Rating 5 out of 5]

Second time enjoying these poems. Thanks for reminding me Jackie!

[Joann · Rating 5 out of 5]

If ever I am stranded on an island (or in an airport), I want a copy of Ted Kooser’s poetry. Any publication will do.

[Anna Katherine Kelley]

very nostalgic

[Nia Holton-Raphael · Rating 4 out of 5]

So sweet. The poems weren't life-altering but I loved the sentiment and it was truly a pleasure to read. Recommend to anyone in a winter slump who wants to work on appreciating the season's beauty!

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

In a way, Ted Kooser's poems in this book has helped me prepare for winter. His discoveries will push me to look carefully as I walk, or simply gaze out my windows. That he wrote these and sent them in postcards to his friend Jim Harrison during the time he was fighting cancer makes them a special gift, for his friend, and for us readers.

[J · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a bit more my speed for poetry or at least Kooser’s poetry. Had a more prosey form and focused a lot more on nature which I seem to prefer and Kooser excels at. Wasn’t overly dripping in obscure metaphor. Still think I prefer silly rhyming poems or those that tell a bit of a story in an easy reading meter.

[Faith · Rating 4 out of 5]

I delight in reading Kooser's poetry, so this became one of my car books (I often like to have a book in progress squirreled away in my vehicle, and poetry is ideal for a short indulgence at school dropoff or the like, when I can capture a couple minutes while running errands).

The framing of WINTER MORNING WALKS is that these are postcards he sent to his friend Jim Harrison as he slowly began to feel himself again after cancer treatments; he wasn't able to be outside in the sun for a time, so these walks occurred in the dark of morning. Each short poem opens with a quick phrase on the weather, and then turns to his observations, be it a creature that he spies, a sound he dwells on, or a thought that occurs to him from his surroundings. I found them a welcome balm, and one is excerpted below.

FEBRUARY 21
Sunny and clear.

Fate, here I stand, hat in hand,
in my fifth-ninth year,
a man of able body and a merry spirit.
I'll take whatever work you have.

===================================
Read-from-my-own-library challenge: 11/25

[superawesomekt · Rating 5 out of 5]

march 11

The sky a pale yellow this morning,
like the skin of an onion,
and here at the center,
under layer upon layer of brooding
and ferment, a poet,
and cupped in his hands, the green shoot
of one word.

Like Mary Oliver, Ted Kooser leaves the reader in no doubt of each individual source of his poems' inspiration. Each poem was written on a postcard after his daily constitutional—necessarily before dawn to minimize his sun exposure due to his cancer treatment.

march 18

I saw the season's first bluebird
this morning, one month ahead
of its scheduled arrival. Lucky I am
to go off to my cancer appointment
having been given a bluebird, and,
for a lifetime, having been given
this world.

This penultimate poem brought forth a rush of memory for me. There are many stories of my grandparents that I heard time and time again as a child, they were precious then as now because I didn't get to know any of my grandparents very well: I knew them only moderately as one of a vast posterity. (Really. I have almost 100 first cousins between the two sides of the family).

One of my favorite of these stories is one of my paternal grandmother. She was ill with a bad back and going through a period of depression and discouragement. Nothing my grandfather could do or say was of much comfort. She wanted to have more children and was experiencing doubt that it would happen for her. Or that her back would ever heal. On one of these dreary days, when they had the door open for fresh air, a bluebird flew in to the living room, seemingly solely to bless her with its proverbial happiness, and then flew out again—this moment proved a turning point in my grandmother's spirits. Her back did improve and she did have (many) more children—including my father.

These are beautiful, sacred poems depicting quiet and cold, bare sticks and fluttering birds. Memories of childhood and questions about the future. They make you want to put on a wool coat, grab a walking stick and a dog, and go for a winter's walk. They also make you want to slow down and savor the sensations of life, not just the warmth inside, but also the bitter wind pushing against you; not just the delicious and sweet, but also the difficult to mouth and swallow.

Or, to quote one of my favorite musicals:

There is a curious paradox that no one can explain. Who understands the secret of the reaping of the grain? Who understands why Spring is born out of Winter’s laboring pain, or why we must all die a bit before we grow again?

[Kirsten Feldman · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have no words better than these.

[☆ deanna ☆ · Rating 4 out of 5]

A comforting wisdom that illustrates the beautiful life of a man who has cancer. He spends his mornings out and about walking in the woods, capturing the world around him in the form of poetry.

"All night, in gusty winds,
the house has cupped its hands around
the steady candle of our marriage,
the two of us braided together in sleep,
and burning, yes, but slowly,
giving off just enough light so that one of us,
awakening frightened in darkness,
can see."

"...the warmth of women sleeping near."

[Robyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Collection follows a single winter, with poems dating November 9 through March 20.

The *next* time I read this, I will start on November 9th and follow along as the season progresses. Highly recommended.

- - -
Re-read -- Winter 2023-24, on corresponding dates (November through March).

Re-read -- Winter 2024-25.

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is, without a doubt, the best book of poetry I have ever read. Kooser is a magician and a master.

[Tara Schaafsma · Rating 5 out of 5]

What beautiful writing. My favorite type of poetry.

[Bo · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an extraordinary and yet simple book to accompany me through the long Midwestern winter.