Meet Your Next Poet Laureate

Kay Ryan the poet may have just been thrown into the spotlight, but her work has been there for a while. Her poems have filled six books, won her more than a few prestigious prizes, and appeared regularly in the New Yorker and Atlantic Monthly. Now they have earned her the field's most glamorous posting, though Ryan herself didn't clamor for it.

While most prominent poets snap up teaching positions at the top Universities, Ryan has spent the last few decades hidden away in Northern California, contentedly teaching a remedial English class. When the New York Times--a piece on Ryan led off their Thursday Arts section--asked her if the coming attention would make it harder to write, she replied "No, uh-uh. I think it will make it impossible."

She may be a little reluctant, but she deserves the influx of attention. Her poems are great. The poet and critic J.D. McClatchy rightly described them as "compact, exhilarating, strange affairs." They are also very clear and brief, while boasting a remarkable depth of meaning. In a Times book review, the poet David Kirby mused on how she accomplishes this:

"Ryan's special talent is for illuminating the known and showing how the unknown defines it, as when she writes of a frozen lake that has its own seasons under the ice or says that Houdini's greatest trick was to emerge from the chains and padlocks as himself."

Here are a few of Ryan's poems. First, "Hailstorm," which appeared in the Atlantic Monthly. To borrow Kirby's formula, the unknown that defines the hailstorm gives this poem its pop.

Hailstorm

Like a storm
of hornets, the
little white planets
layer and relayer
as they whip around
in their high orbits,
getting more and
more dense before
they crash against
our crust. A maelstrom
of ferocious little
fists and punches,
so hard to believe
once it's past.

You can see the importance of form to Ryan's work. Like William Carlos Williams, she uses quick, jarring line breaks to infuse "Hailstorm" with tension.

"Patience" is a different sort of poem. It's an odd and brilliant exploration of what patience is, replete with its own geography. Like much of Ryan's work, it teaches you something about a concept you thought you fully understood.

Patience

Patience is
wider than one
once envisioned,
with ribbons
of rivers
and distant
ranges and
tasks undertaken
and finished
with modest
relish by
natives in their
native dress.
Who would
have guessed
it possible
that waiting
is sustainable--
a place with
its own harvests.
Or that in
time's fullness
the diamonds
of patience
couldn't be
distinguished
from the genuine
in brilliance
or hardness.

Finally here's "Home to Roost," (Ryan often employs and playfully explores clichés) which manages to be strange, magical and funny at once.

The chickens
are circling and
blotting out the
day. The sun is
bright, but the
chickens are in
the way. Yes,
the sky is dark
with chickens,
dense with them.
They turn and
then they turn
again. These
are the chickens
you let loose
one at a time
and small--
various breeds.
Now they have
come home
to roost--all
the same kind
at the same speed.

If you want to read more, the Times has some great resources on Kay Ryan here.

In case you were surprised to learn that this country has a poet laureate (don't feel bad--I meet people who are surprised to learn that this country still has poets), here's some background. The laureate position has been around since 1986--prior to that a "Consultant in Poetry" position existed, and holders of that title included Robert Frost, William Carlos Williams, and Elizabeth Bishop. The poet laureate is expected to serve as a sort of ambassador for the art. The position is technically chosen by the librarian of Congress, one Mr. James H. Billington, who is probably not qualified to make the decision. Not to worry though, he gets a lot of advice from poets and critics around the country.

Ryan is America's sixteenth poet laureate. If you're curious, here's a list of the country's laureates to date:

2008-09 Kay Ryan
2007-08 Charles Simic
2006-07 Donald Hall
2004-06 Ted Kooser
2003-04 Louise Gluck
2001-03 Billy Collins
2000-01 Stanley Kunitz
1999-00 Rita Dove, Luise Gluck, W.S. Merwin
1997-00 Robert Pinsky
1995-97 Rita Dove
1992-93 Mona Van Duyn
1991-92 Joseph Brodsky
1990-91 Mark Strand
1988-90 Howard Nemerov
1987-88 Richard Wilbur
1986-87 Robert Penn Warren

Comments

[swimfish]

Mr. Lundberg--

Bob Hass is missing from the list of poet laureates.

[wanked]

This woman is wonderful. My brain is bathing in her words.

Good news is so refreshing. Congratulations Ms. Ryan

[Topfeeder]

I feel bad because at 1st glance I though this was Paul McCartney.

[plainsman]

I suspect Ryan's stint as laureate will be as restrained as Gluck's. Both are notoriously reclusive. Ryan is a fine poet and very deserving of the honor, though.

[bitabingbitabangbitaboom]

Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
You'll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who
That it's namin'.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'.
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin'.
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'.

The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin'.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'.

[degas]

++++ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHkgbtLHoWw ++++

*[Come gather round people wherever you roam...
for the times they are a]**blazin'

Come writers and artists who prophesize with your zen
the very essence of life one must defend
we must call out the lies while earth can still spin
and every living soul time is now naming
our planet cannot allow further damage from men
for the time they are a raging

Politicos and diplomats please heed the call
actions abroad instigate your empire's fall
the hungry and the poor ones are being killed in your squall
the complicit left the battle stage decades ago
but somethings gonna give your hate is rubbing us raw
for the times they are a caged in

The politics of children they poison the land
legislate back-scratching language favors e-cash trading hands
the affects of their high game mugshot all living man
if you'd just look into a mirror of uninformed decision
your zero purchase precision supply and demand
has turned us all into children being born without hands
for the time's a sale in the making

Tax dollars add up to billions pay to subdue foreign man
whose gods and whose hopes don't fit into our plans
as violence becomes us and artifice our dope
we expand annihilation to galactic scope
as childish molesters dress up just like the pope
and we accept lies in a hang knot rope
for the times they are enslaving

*Lyrics-Bob Dylan
**Lyrics-Joel Moore

[Caddisfly]

oops, Williams

[Caddisfly]

Willaim Carlos Willaims....how about on of my favorites, e.e. cummings?

[FdeBear]

Poems that rhyme: yuck!