A Certain Kind of Eden

 - Kay Ryan

 

It seems like you could, but

you can’t go back and pull

the roots and runners and replant.

It’s all too deep for that.

You’ve overprized intention,

have mistaken any bent you’re given

for control. You thought you chose

the bean and chose the soil.

You even thought you abandoned

one or two gardens. But those things

keep growing where we put them—

if we put them at all.

A certain kind of Eden holds us thrall.

Even the one vine that tendrils out alone

in time turns on its own impulse,

twisting back down its upward course

a strong and then a stronger rope,

the greenest saddest strongest

kind of hope.

from: Flamingo Watching. Copyright 1994.

Paired Things

- Kay Ryan

Who, who had only seen wings,

could extrapolate the

skinny sticks of things

birds use for land,

the backward way they bend,

the silly way they stand?

And who, only studying

birdtracks in the sand,

could think those little forks

had decamped on the wind?

So many paired things seem odd.

Who ever would have dreamed

the broad winged raven of despair

would quit the air and go

bandylegged upon the ground,

a common crow?

from: Flamingo Watching. Copyright 1994.

What Does a Poet Laureate Do? Kay Ryan.

 

A two time Poet Laureate, from 2008 until 2010.

Kay Ryan





“What poetry does is put more oxygen in the atmosphere. Poetry makes it easier to breathe.”






Besides writing poetry, she developed Poetry for the Mind’s Joy in 2009 to highlight poetry being written on community college campuses.

Poetry for the Mind’s Joy is a national initiative that includes a videoconference, a national celebration by community colleges, and a poetry writing contest. 

~ The ANTHOLOGY of winning poems ~

In April of 2011,  Ms Ryan won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, for her collection The Best of It: New and Selected Poems.

Here is an example of her poetry:


Hide and Seek
― Kay Ryan,
      The Niagara River

It’s hard not
to jump out
instead of
waiting to be
found. It’s
hard to be
alone so long
and then hear
someone come
around. It’s
like some form
of skin’s developed
in the air
that, rather
than have torn,
you tear.



ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

Kay Ryan:

• Online resources for Kay Ryan.
• Prior posts on Kay Ryan here & here.

General:

• From the Catbird Seat: Poetry and literature at the Library of Congress.
• List of Poets Laureate.

Photo: Hide and Seek, Artsy Time.

Speaking of Poets Laureate . . .

Patience  

by Kay Ryan

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.

from: Say Uncle. Copyright 2000. 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM

Things Shouldn't Be So hard
by Kay Ryan

A life should leave
deep tracks:
ruts where she
went out and back
to get the mail
or move the hose
around the yard;
where she used to
stand before the sink,
a worn out place;
beneath her hand,
the china knobs
rubbed down to
white pastilles;
the switch she
used to feel for
in the dark
almost erased.
Her things should
keep her marks.
The passage
of a life should show;
it should abrade.
And when life stops,
a certain space
—however small—
should be left scarred
by the grand and
damaging parade.
Things shouldn't
be so hard.