Jump to content

Kay Ryan

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Easchiff (talk | contribs) at 14:34, 27 July 2008 (→‎Poetry: fixed location of reference.). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Kay Ryan
OccupationPoet, educator
NationalityUnited States
Period1970s-present
SpouseCarol Adair (2008-present)

Kay Ryan (born 1945) is an American poet and educator. She will be the sixteenth Poet Laureate of the United States.[1]

Biography

Ryan was born in San Jose, California and was raised in several areas of the San Joaquin Valley and the Mojave Desert.[2] After attending Antelope Valley College, she received both bachelor's and master's degrees from University of California, Los Angeles. Since 1971, she has lived in Fairfax, California, and has taught English at the College of Marin in Kentfield.[3] She has lived with her partner Carol Adair since the late 1970s.[4]

Ryan published her sixth collection of poetry, The Niagara River, in 2005. Her first collection, Dragon Acts to Dragon Ends, was privately published in 1983 with the help of friends.[5] While she found a commercial publisher for her second collection, Strangely Marked Metal (1985), her work went nearly unrecognized until the mid 1990s, when some of her poems were anthologized and the first reviews in national journals were published.[6] She became widely recognized following her receipt of the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize in 2004.

In July, 2008, the U.S. Library of Congress announced that Ryan would be the sixteenth Poet Laureate of the United States for a one year term commencing in Autumn 2008. She will succeed Charles Simic.[1]

Poetry

The Poetry Foundation's website characterized Ryan's poems as follows: "Like Emily Dickinson and Marianne Moore before her, Ryan delights in quirks of logic and language and teases poetry out of the most unlikely places. She regards the 'rehabilitation of clichés,' for instance, as part of the poet’s mission. Characterized by subtle, surprising rhymes and nimble rhythms, her compact poems are charged with sly wit and off-beat wisdom."[7] A review of her fifth collection, Say Uncle, noted that, "Her casual manner and nods to the wisdom tradition might endear her to fans of A.R. Ammons or link her distantly to Emily Dickinson. But her tight structures, odd rhymes and ethical judgments place her more firmly in the tradition of Marianne Moore and, latterly, Amy Clampitt."[8] Katha Pollitt has written that Elephant Rocks is "Stevie Smith rewritten by William Blake" and that Say Uncle "is like a poetical offspring of George Herbert and the British comic poet Wendy Cope."[9]

Ryan's poems are often quite short. In one of the first essays on Ryan, Dana Gioia wrote about this aspect of her poetry. "Ryan reminds us of the suggestive power of poetry–how it elicits and rewards the reader’s intellect, imagination, and emotions. I like to think that Ryan’s magnificently compressed poetry – along with the emergence of other new masters of the short poem like Timothy Murphy and H.L. Hix and the veteran maestri like Ted Kooser and Dick Davis – signals a return to concision and intensity."[6]

The wit and the compression of Ryan's art are illustrated in the poem "Outsider Art":

...Their purpose wraps
around the backs of things
and under arms;
they gouge and hatch
and glue on charms
till likable materials–
apple crates and canning funnels–
lose their rural ease. We are not
pleased the way we thought
we would be pleased.
— excerpt from "Outsider Art" [10]

Honors and awards

Ryan's awards include a 1995 award from the Ingram Merrill Foundation,[1] the 2000 Union League Poetry Prize,[11] the 2001 Maurice English Poetry Award, a fellowship in 2001 from the National Endowment for the Arts,[12] a 2004 Guggenheim Fellowship, and the 2004 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize. Her poems have been included in three Pushcart Prize anthologies,[13][14][15] and have been selected four times for The Best American Poetry;[16][17][18][19] "Outsider Art" was selected for The Best of the Best American Poetry 1988-1997. Since 2006, Ryan has served as one of fourteen Chancellors of The Academy of American Poets.[20]

Collections

  • Ryan, Kay (1983). Dragon Acts to Dragon Ends. Fairfax, CA: Taylor Street Press. pp. 64 p. ISBN 0911407006.
  • Ryan, Kay (1985). Strangely Marked Metal. Providence, RI: Copper Beech Press. pp. 50 p. ISBN 0914278460.
  • Ryan, Kay (1994). Flamingo Watching. Providence, RI: Copper Beech Press. pp. 63 p. ISBN 0914278649.
  • Ryan, Kay (1997). Elephant Rocks. New York: Grove Press. pp. 84 p. ISBN 0802115861. Retrieved 2008-07-21.
  • Ryan, Kay (2000). Say Uncle. New York: Grove Press. pp. 80 p. ISBN 0802137172.
  • Ryan, Kay (2005). The Niagara River. New York: Grove Press. pp. 72 p. ISBN 0802142222.

References

  1. ^ a b c Raymond, Matt (17 July 2008). "Librarian of Congress Appoints Kay Ryan Poet Laureate". The Library of Congress. Archived from the original on 2008-07-18. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  2. ^ Kay Ryan (26 July 2006). "Kay Ryan Discusses New Collection of Poems" (Video/Transcript) (Interview). Retrieved 2008-07-18. {{cite interview}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help); Unknown parameter |callsign= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |program= ignored (help)
  3. ^ Cohen, Patricia (17 July 2008). "Kay Ryan, Outsider With Sly Style, Named Poet Laureate". The New York Times. Retrieved 2008-07-18.
  4. ^ Halstead, Richard (September 23, 2007). "Kay Ryan rises to the top despite her refusal to compromise". Marin Independent Journal. Retrieved 2008-07-18.
  5. ^ Ryan told Richard Halstead (Marin Independent Journal, 2007) that, "There is a certain onus on publishing one's own book. So, I wasn't terribly proud to be doing that. It was the act of a desperate woman, and it did me not a shred of good."
  6. ^ a b Gioia, Dana (1998–99). "Review: Discovering Kay Ryan". The Dark Horse (no. 7). Retrieved 2008-07-18. {{cite journal}}: |issue= has extra text (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)CS1 maint: date format (link)
  7. ^ "Kay Ryan (1945- )". Poetry Foundation. 2008. Retrieved 2008-07-18.
  8. ^ PW staff writers (24 July 2000). "Review: Say Uncle, Ryan, Kay (Author)". Publishers' Weekly. Archived from the original on 2007-03-11. Retrieved 2008-07-18.
  9. ^ Pollitt, Katha (November 8, 2000). "Shaking New Meanings Out of Worn Phrases". Slate.com. Retrieved 2008-07-25.
  10. ^ Ryan, Kay (1997). "Outsider Art". Elephant Rocks. Grove Press. ISBN 0802135250. {{cite book}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); External link in |chapterurl= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help) See also the article Outsider Art.
  11. ^ "Poetry Prizes: The Union League Civic and Arts Poetry Prize". Poetry. 2008. Retrieved 2008-07-18. See also the Union League article.
  12. ^ Mason, Eileen B. (2001). "2001 Annual Report: Individual Fellowships" (.PDF). National Endowment for the Arts: p. 31. Retrieved 2008-07-18. {{cite journal}}: |pages= has extra text (help); Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  13. ^ Ryan, Kay (1997). "Crib". In Henderson, Bill (ed.). The Pushcart Prize XXI: Best of the Small Presses, 1997 Edition. Wainscott, NY: Pushcart Press. p. 44. ISBN 0916366960. {{cite book}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); External link in |chapterurl= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help)
  14. ^ Ryan, Kay (1998). "Living with Stripes". In Henderson, Bill (ed.). The Pushcart Prize XXII: Best of the Small Presses, 1998 Edition. Wainscott, NY: Pushcart Press. p. 152. ISBN 978-1888889079. {{cite book}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); External link in |chapterurl= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help)
  15. ^ Ryan, Kay (2004). "Chinese Foot Chart". In Henderson, Bill (ed.). The Pushcart Prize XXIX: Best of the Small Presses, 2005 Edition. Wainscott, NY: Pushcart Press. ISBN 978-1888889390. {{cite book}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); External link in |chapterurl= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help)
  16. ^ Ryan, Kay (1995). "Outsider Art". In Lehman, David and Howard, Richard (ed.). The Best American Poetry 1995. Scribners. ISBN 978-0684801513. {{cite book}}: External link in |chapterurl= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link)
  17. ^ Ryan, Kay (1999). "That Will to Divest". In Lehman, David and Bly, Robert (ed.). The Best American Poetry 1999. Scribners.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link)
  18. ^ Ryan, Kay (2005). "Home to Roost". In Lehman, David and Muldoon, Paul (ed.). The Best American Poetry 2005. Scribners. {{cite book}}: External link in |chapterurl= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link)
  19. ^ Ryan, Kay (2006). "Thin". In Lehman, David and Collins, Billy (ed.). The Best American Poetry 2006. Scribners.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link)
  20. ^ "Chancellors of the Academy of American Poets". Academy of American Poets. Retrieved 2008-07-21.

External links

{{subst:#if:Ryan, Kay|}} [[Category:{{subst:#switch:{{subst:uc:1945}} || UNKNOWN | MISSING = Year of birth missing {{subst:#switch:{{subst:uc:}}||LIVING=(living people)}} | #default = 1945 births }}]] {{subst:#switch:{{subst:uc:}} || LIVING = | MISSING = | UNKNOWN = | #default = }}

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kay_Ryan&oldid=228194863"