Raft is our fifth collection of poetry from Pulitzer Prize winner Ted Kooser. A reflection of his desire to write for the everyday reader, these poems welcome us with a style that is clear and accessible yet deeply imagistic and metaphorical. Raft shows us that even the simplest of objects, the simplest of actions, is a portal. A man cutting scraps of gauze becomes a study on happiness. A boy feeding a goldfish becomes a meditation on loneliness. Both based in place and delightfully universal, Raft travels the Midwest landscape, attuned to life's shared experiences and emotions-illness and aging, beauty and love. Some poems cradle elegies for lost family and friends. Drifting on rafts of language, we celebrate the small, quiet wonders of life. A Glint I watched a glint of morning sunlight climbing a thread of spider's silk in a gentle breeze. It shinnied up from the tip of a dewy stalk of grass to an overhanging branch, then disappeared into the leaves. But soon another followed, and then another, glint after glint, and though they made no sound, what I could see was music, not melody but one clear, shining note plucked over and over, as if the sun were tuning the day, then handing it to me so I could play it.