Ted Kooser’s grace with words has earned him a wide range of acknowledgments and honors. Being named the U.S. poet laureate in 2004 and winning the Pulitzer Prize in poetry earlier this month are just two of the widely acknowledged accolades Kooser has received for his work.

This week, however, Kooser is adding a more personal accomplishment to his career — coming to Ames to read his internationally renowned poetry to a hometown audience.

From his early school days in Ames, Kooser says he remembers being inspired by the carefully crafted word-worlds of poetry. One poem in particular, Walter De Le Mare’s “The Listeners,” a brooding piece about a weary traveler knocking on a door only to be answered by still silence, had a profound effect.

“I don’t know why it struck me, but I was really haunted by that poem,” Kooser says.

Kooser began weaving his own word tapestries at a young age. His hobby eventually became his job and the delight of thousands of appreciating fans.

“I wrote poems as a little boy, and as I got older I got more serious about it,” Kooser says.

“Once I started, I never stopped.”

One reason poetry appealed to him, he says, was the opportunity it provided to create a unique identity while expressing himself creatively.

“I was always interested in the arts as a way of differentiating myself from other people,” Kooser says.

Rural settings, everyday characters and conversational language are common characteristics of Kooser’s poems. This less aristocratic approach to poetry is often cited as a reason for his mass appeal. Kooser himself is reluctant to attribute his success to any one thing.

“I try to write with clarity. It’s hard to guess what people are getting out of it, but the fact that my poems aren’t that difficult must help,” Kooser says.

He says most of his poems begin as a random thought or note put to paper during one of his daily writing sessions. The writing sessions don’t follow any specific form like a journal or actual lines of rhyming poetry; instead, Kooser says, he likens the process to a sort of doodling that occasionally becomes something more complex.

“It’s as if you were playing the piano, and in the middle of it a little melody started up — that’s how it works,” Kooser says.

Although the spirit of how he thinks and writes poems has not changed through his career, Kooser hopes one aspect of his work — the quality — has changed.

“I hope I have gotten better at it; I have been writing for about 50 years, so I hope I have been improving all along,” Kooser says.

Kooser says he rarely gets much more than a passing look at his hometown and is looking forward to making a longer stop in Ames to look over the town, see old friends and share some poems for his fans.

“I suppose we all dream of being celebrated in our hometown,” Kooser says.

What: Poetry reading with Ted Kooser

Where: Great Hall, Memorial Union

When: 8 p.m. Thursday

Cost: free