Every time I see 5:30 AM on a clock. Every time I have to kick a soda machine to get my Coca-Cola. And yes, every time I hear Mariah Carey’s “We Belong Together,” I’ll remember Portfolio Center.

Several years ago, I was in my final months of college, happily content with a teaching job lined up after graduation. So when a friend told me to check out a presentation one night about some graduate school called Portfolio Center, I almost brushed it off. After doing a little research (and realizing that they would be serving free pizza), my mind was changed. …more

Ted Kooser is a peerless storyteller. He has astute powers of observation and a wonderful command of the language. I’m awed by phrases like calico autumn, or her heart held on a measure of darkness, or blue gloves lifted my glide, or walking on her beautiful legs of lightning. Aren’t these amazing metaphors? His words are a magical juxtaposition of ordinary and extraordinary, of pirouette and boogie.

I had the privilege of hearing Kooser, the United States’ Poet Laureate, read at Oglethorpe University last week, where he was generous, warm, funny, self-effacing, and a surprisingly large presence for such …more