This book is a collection of poems recording the devastation unleashed on the Great Plains by the blizzard of January 12, 1888. "The Blizzard Voices" is based on the actual reminiscences of the survivors as recorded in documents from the time and written reminiscences from years later. Here are the haunting voices of the men and women who were teaching school, working the land, and tending the house when the storm arrived and changed their lives forever. Ted Kooser, the U.S. poet laureate and winner of the 2005 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry, is a professor of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. In addition to his many volumes of poetry, he is the coauthor (with Steve Cox) of "Writing Brave and Free: Encouraging Words for People Who Want to Start Writing" (Nebraska 2006) and the author of "The Poetry Home Repair Manual: Practical Advice for Beginning Poets" (Nebraska 2005) and "Local Wonders: Seasons in the Bohemian Alps", available in a Bison Books edition. Tom Pohrt is an illustrator who lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan.