Participants in the Wilson's Creek National Battlefield Memorial Illumination stand at attention while the park's flag is lowered. It was August 10, 1861, when 17,000 men, Confederates and Union ...more

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American Legion Vietnam Memorial Post 639 in Springfield was host to The Vietnam Traveling Memorial Wall. An introduction to the wall told us the exhibit was "in memory of the men and women who ...more

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Avis Holloway (center) assists Helen Boutwell (at right) in positioning a wreath in front of the Blue Star Veteran's Memorial marker during a dedication ceremony at the Springfield Botanical Gardens ...more

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Excitement filled the Weisel and Kelly Galleries of the Springfield Art Museum on May 15, 2015, as folks gathered to meet diminutive Susi Ettinger, pictured with her companion. In her 92nd year ...more

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So, like many, you probably missed celebrating National Poinsettia Day. It was December 12. You probably also missed the black Friday sale of decent-sized poinsettia plants for 96-cents ...more

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by Ashley Taylor Ever sit at your kitchen table in the morning and wonder, who invented your cereal? Well, if you are eating corn flakes, it was John Harvey Kellogg, pictured at left. His ...more

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by Jack McKean The best and most beautiful thing about this world is hope. Its during our darkest hours where we can find hope to come and turn a negative into a positive. Dont judge each day ...more

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by Trish Hall An introduction - This piece was written in 1990 when Hall was 20 years old. The author writes that she doesn't know why she is suddenly sharing it but that "it needs to see the ...more

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Long-time Joplin resident Anna "Frankie" Hale recently reminisced with members of the Joplin Area Welcome Club at a luncheon held at Twin Hills Country Club in Joplin. (photo by Vince ...more

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Mark LaPerle, a Christian/folk/pop/ singer/musician from Bedford, Virginia performs for city of Joplin officials and a huge gathering at Cunningham Park, the final destination for the Walk of Unity ...more

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Robert X. Fogarty, a photographer from New Orleans, speaks at the opening of his creative exhibit, "Dear World" at the Spiva Center for the Arts. "Dear World, From Joplin with Love," is a powerful ...more

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Kourtney and Adam Grisham pose with daughter Emily My husband was feeling moderate pain when I and my 13-month-old daughter on May 22, 2011, accompanied him to St. John's Hospital. While he ...more

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This is dedicated to the family members of Jesse McKee who lost his life in the Joplin tornado this summer. He served his country, his community and his church. Griefby Patricia Hall As she ...more

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by Mari Winn Taylor SELF-PHOTO REFLECTION Downtown Joplin was chosen as the location for participation in author/photographer Scott Kelby's annual Worldwide Photowalk. The event organized locally ...more

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JOPLIN'S SURREAL DISTRUCTION - While I shake my head and say, wow quietly, a big man with a thick beard who overhears me says, You aint seen nothing yet...... by Joe Baker It was evening when ...more

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Traveling to paradise but you have to get there first! by Eileen Wacker When we relocated to Seoul, Korea from Connecticut, our four kids were aged 3 months, 17 months, 4-years-old and ...more

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Notorious outlaw John Herbert Dillinger is seen with his arm on the shoulder of Lake County, Indiana prosecutor Robert G. Estill. Sheriff Lillian Holly is standing to the left of Estill. This staged ...more

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Comments by Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate, 2004-06 A friend saw a refrigerator magnet that read, "PARENTING: THE FIRST 40 YEARS ARE THE HARDEST." And lots of parents, thinking their children have ...more

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Allen R. Shirley, president of the Joplin Historical Society, holds up a framed memorial to the crew of the Enola Gay. History is often taught in the public school system as dry facts. ...more

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Holding one of the large wreaths up for auction at Crowder College Foundation's 2010 Festival of Wreaths is Crowder cheerleader Jordyn Hickcox-Lobland while auctioneer Bob Lasswell announces the ...more

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Commentary by Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate, 2004-06 The first poem we published in this column, back in the spring of 2005, was by David Allan Evans, the Poet Laureate of South Dakota, and it's ...more

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Paying The cat has burrs on his butt. Grabbing his haunches, he curls round himself. Working to remove the burrs, he bites down through his fur. The burrs are deeply embedded. He worries one to ...more

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James Bogan, pictured, wears many hats--poet, author, and professor of arts, languages and philosophy at the Missouri University of Science & Technology in Rolla. But he brought his favorite hat, ...more

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One immediate thought was, "Where have all the flowers gone?" But the poem below is not a war protest but just a realization of time passing. Here's a poem discovered a decade after having been ...more

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Commentary by Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate, 2004-06 In our busy times, the briefest pause to express a little interest in the natural world is praiseworthy. Most of us spend our time thinking ...more

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A framed illustrated description of the "Foundations of the Church" informs visitors that the "Vatican and Catholic Church grew out of the events described in the New Testament: the story of Jesus, ...more

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Introduction by Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate, 2004-06 Peter Everwine is a California poet whose work I have admired for almost as long as I have been writing. Here he beautifully captures a quiet ...more

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Commentary by Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate, 2004-06 Here's hoping that very few...readers have to go through cardiac rehab, which Thomas Reiter of New Jersey captures in this poem, but if they do, ...more

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Just a sound, then a rustling of leaves, call attention to wildlife camouflaged in a tree. The pointer calls attention to the area of our property where the hens were spotted. So, I am ...more

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Commentary by Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate, 2004-06 I recognize the couple who are introduced in this poem by Patricia Frolander, of Sundance, WY, and perhaps you'll recognize them, too.  ...more

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Comments by Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate, 2004-06 Barnyard chickens, which are little more than reptiles with feathers, can be counted on to kill those among them who are malformed or diseased, ...more

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Comment by Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate, 2004-06 We are sometimes amazed by how well the visually impaired navigate the world, but like the rest of us, they have found a way to do what interests ...more

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By Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate, 2004-06 When we hear news of a flood, that news is mostly about the living, about the survivors. But at the edges of floods are the dead, too. Here Michael ...more

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Commentary by Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate, 2004-06-- All over this country, marriage counselors and therapists are right now speaking to couples about unspoken things. In this poem, Andrea ...more

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Commentary by Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate, 2004-06 These days are brim full of bad news about our economybusinesses closing, people losing their houses, their jobs. If there's any comfort in a ...more

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Commentary by Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate, 2004-06 Often when I dig some change out of my jeans pocket to pay somebody for something, the pennies and nickels are accompanied by a big gob of blue ...more

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Introduction by Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate, 2004-06 A poem is an experience like any other, and we can learn as much or more about, say, an apple from a poem about an apple as from the apple ...more

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This is a true story of lost love and hope. Back in the summer when I was 13 years old, we lived on the east side of Small Town Anywhere, U.S.A. I rode my bike a lot; almost every day. There ...more

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At right, Mattie Gilmore and her mom Kenna Peters check out coordinates on Kenna's Delorme Earthmate GPS. They were looking for the closest geocache hidden in Joplin. Below, Mattie signs a ...more

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Commentary by Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate, 2004-06 Family photographs, how much they do capture in all their elbow-to-elbow awkwardness. In this poem, Ben Vogt of Nebraska describes a color ...more

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Commentary by Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate, 2004-06 There are lots of poems in which a poet expresses belated appreciation for a parent, and if you don't know Robert Hayden's poem, "Those Winter ...more

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Commentary by Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate, 2004-06 An "aubade" is a poem about separation at dawn, but as you'll see, this one by Dore Kiesselbach, who lives in Minnesota, is about the complex ...more

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Introduction by Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate, 2004-06 I tell my writing students that their most important task is to pay attention to what's going on around them. God is in the details, as we ...more

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Commentary by Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate, 2004-06 This column originates on the campus of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and at the beginning of each semester, we see parents helping their ...more

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Commentary by Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate, 2004-06 For over 40 years, Mark Vinz, of Moorhead, Minnesota--poet, teacher, publisher--has been a prominent advocate for the literature of the Upper ...more

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Comments by Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate, 2004-06 There have been many poems written in which a photograph is described in detail, and this one by Margaret Kaufman, of the Bay Area in California, ...more

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Introduction by Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate, 2004-06 There's lots of literature about the loss of innocence, because we all share in that loss and literature is about what we share. Here's a poem ...more

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by Jack Kennedy Several years ago, every day I faced a quiet student in the front row of my English class. Every day I tried to get some oral response from this bright-looking soul in my ...more

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Edited by Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate, 2004-06 American literature is rich with poems about the passage of time, and the inevitability of change, and how these affect us. Here is a poem by Kevin ...more

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Edited by Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate, 2004-06 We've published this column about American life for over four years, and we have finally found a poem about one of the great American pastimes, ...more

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Commentary by Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate, 2004-06 I've gotten to the age at which I am starting to strain to hear things, but I am glad to have gotten to that age, all the same. Here's a fine ...more

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by Daniel Patrick Welch Slinte agus saol agat! Good health and long life to you. Another St. Patrick's Day is here, with its tacky kegs of green beer, leprechauns, lucky charms, fake plastic ...more

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Commentary by Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate, 2004-06 Ah, yes, the mid-life crisis. And there's a lot of mid-life in which it can happen. Jerry Lee Lewis sang of it so well in "He's thirty-nine and ...more

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Edited by Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate, 2004-06 Memories have a way of attaching themselves to objects, to details, to physical tasks, and here, George Bilgere, an Ohio poet, happens upon mixed ...more

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Edited by Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate, 2004-06 Here's a fine poem by Chris Forhan of Indiana, about surviving the loss of a parent, and which celebrates the lives that survive it, that go on. I ...more

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Edited by Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate, 2004-06 One of the most effective means for conveying strong emotion is to invest some real object with one's feelings, and then to let the object carry ...more

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Edited by Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate, 2004-06 Father and child doing a little math homework together; it's an everyday occurrence, but here, Russell Libby, a poet who writes from Three Sisters ...more

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Edited by Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate, 2004-06 The first two lines of this poem pose a question many of us may have thought about: how does snow make silence even more silent? And notice Robert ...more

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Edited by Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate, 2004-06 Occupational hazards, well, you have to find yourself in the occupation to know about those. Here Minnie Bruce Pratt of Alabama gives us an inside ...more

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By Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate, 2004-06 In celebration of Veteran's Day, here is a telling poem by Gary Dop, a Minnesota poet. The veterans of World War II, now old, are dying by the thousands. ...more

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Camp Crowder in Neosho, one of 30 camps in Missouri, housed between 2,000 and 2500 German prisoners during World War II. There were about 380,000 German PWs in 660 camps in every US state except ...more

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Edited by Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate, 2004-06 When I was a boy, there were still a few veterans of the Spanish American War, and more of The Great War, or World War I, and now all those have ...more

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Commentary by Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate, 2004-06 Perhaps you made paper leaves when you were in grade school. I did. But are our memories as richly detailed as these by Washington, D.C. poet, ...more

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Edited by Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate, 2004-2006 I've always loved shop talk, with its wonderful language of tools and techniques. This poem by D. Nurkse of Brooklyn, NY, is a perfect example. I ...more

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Review by Mark Adams "A light hearted romp" will not be found in any descriptions about The American Lie--Government by the People and Other Political Fables (Paradigm Publishers, July 2007), ...more

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Edited by Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate, 2004-06 I don't often talk about poetic forms in this column, thinking that most of my readers aren't interested in how the clock works and would rather be ...more

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Edited by Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate, 2004-2006 Sometimes I think that people are at their happiest when they're engaged in activities close to the work of the earliest humans: telling stories ...more

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American Life in Poetry is edited by Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate, 2004-06. He offers these two poems: Texas poet R.S. Gwynn is a master of the light touch. Here he picks up on Gerard Manley ...more

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Edited by Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate, 2004-06 Though at the time it may not occur to us to call it "mentoring," there's likely to be a good deal of that sort of thing going on, wanted or ...more

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Introduction by Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate, 2004-06 Elsewhere in this newspaper you may find some advice for maintaining and repairing troubled relationships. Here, in a poem by Linda Pastan of ...more

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Post-traumatic stress disorder is a new name for "shell shock," a term once applied only to military veterans. Here the poet Marvin Bell describes a group of these emotionally damaged soldiers, ...more

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Review by Jack Kennedy Sometimes, you can tell a book by its cover. That is evident from the moment you spy the dust jacket for Thank God for Evolution, with the subtitle How the marriage of ...more

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By James H. Boren, PhD Two dozen chickens were hung on a lineNaked and gutted awaiting the signMarking approval to be served as a meal,Tender and wholesome with great food appeal. “Wait ...more

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Two poems hit our e-mail from American Life in Poetry about growing old. The first one tells about forced retirement and how a husband compares his situation to that of his wife; the second one ...more

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Assisting to educate one million people in the next 12 months about global warming is the role assumed locally by David Gordon, Ph.D., an associate professor of biology at Pittsburg State ...more

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by Jack L. Kennedy "It can't happen here...." Not long ago, many of us thought school violence, threats, intimidation and killing could not occur in our own schools, whether small rural ...more

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Round and Round by Daniel Patrick Welch On the occasion of the anniversary of US independence, this poem by Daniel Patrick Welch muses on the state of patriotism in the USA. In a brief jaunt ...more

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This piece was written as a reaction to Who's Watching You?, a book by Mick Farren and John Gibb that describes how the US government using the excuse of terrorism has stepped up its surveillance and ...more

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by Jack L. Kennedy There is beauty in simplicity, even when both are colored by pain. Disintegration, love and hope are the key factors in Deborah Shouse's Love in the Land of Dementia: ...more

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Author/lecturer Kay Hively holds up a copy of Jon Cleary's 1977 novel, Vortex during a talk she gave for the Crowder College Friends of the Library on campus in Neosho. Cleary's story takes place ...more

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by Dr. Stephen L. Timmeprofessor of botanyand director of the T. M. Sperry Herbarium, Pittsburg State University, Pittsburg, KS. A small bluet While hiking at Wildcat Glade (just at the ...more

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