Welcome to Sunday Poetry.   If this is your first visit you can read about the purpose and inspiration of my Sunday poetry blogs here.

I fell in love with this poem and poet immediately.  The poem is short, but it packs a large punch.  I found Boarding House after first finding Ted Kooser through another poem on the same site. Then I began searching to find out more about him.  Please click this link to his website, which has wonderful videos of him reading his poetry out loud.  Remember, I’m a poetry novice and started this blog to learn more.   I think you’ll be seeing Mr. Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate from 2004 to 2006, often here.

I was drawn by title to this particular poem because my Irish great-grandmother ran a boarding house in the Finger Lakes area of New York, or at least that’s what my recent and brief foray into Kelley geneaology turned up.  I love the idea of this, and picture the book I could write about her life.  But I can’t imagine a book with as much power as this poem.  And that’s a large part of what makes poetry so important.  Revelation and transformation in the blink of an eye.

Remember there are no quizzes here, no right ways to read or contemplate the poem we share.  Absolutely no dissecting allowed.  Just come along for the “read.”  What line, word or thought will you carry with you this week?  If you’d like to tell us where the poem took you?  We’ll listen.