* Former U.S. Poet Laureate * Pulitzer Prize in Poetry * One of America's best-selling poets * Delights and Shadows is a perennial backlist engine, with lifetime sales approaching 100,000 units * founding editor of weekly newspaper column "American Life in Poetry," with total circulation of 3.5 million * Proudly one of the most accessible poets writing today, insisting that he never wants a reader to feel stupid * Any book of poems from Ted Kooser is cause for celebration