<DIV>Named U.S. Poet Laureate for 2004-2006, Ted Kooser is one of America's masters of the short metaphorical poem. Dana Gioia has remarked that Kooser has written more perfect poems than any poet of his generation.<BR><BR>In <I>Flying at Night: Poems 1965-1985</I>, Kooser has selected poems from two of his earlier works, <I>Sure Signs</I> and <I>One World at a Time</I> (1985). Taken together or read one at a time, these poems clearly show why William Cole, writing in the <I>Saturday Review</I>, called Ted Kooser "a wonderful poet," and why Peter Stitt, writing in the <I>Georgia Review</I>, proclaimed him "a skilled and cunning writer. . . . An authentic 'poet of the American people.'"<BR></DIV>