Search results for ""author kay ryan""

In the citation accompanying Kay's recent award of the prestigious Ruth Lilly Prize, Christine Wiman wrote: "Kay Ryan can take any subject and make it her own. Her poems-which combine extreme concision and formal expertise with broad subjects and deep feeling-could never be mistaken for anyone else's. Her work has the kind of singularity and sustained integrity that are very, very rare…. It's always a dicey business predicting the literary future…[but] for this reader, these poems feel as if there were built to last, and…they have the passion, precision and sheer weirdness to do so."Salon compared the poems in Ryan's last collection to "Fabergé eggs, tiny, ingenious devices that inevitably conceal some hidden wonder." The exquisite poems in The Niagara River provide similarly hidden gems. Bafflingly effective, they seem too brief and blithe to pack so much wallop. Intense and relaxed at once, both buoyant and rueful, their singular music appeals to many people. Her poems, products of an immaculately off-kilter mind, have been featured everywhere from the Sunday funnies to New York subways to plaques at the zoo to the pages of The New Yorker.

Read more less

Filled with wry logic and a magical, unpredictable musicality, Kay Ryan's poems continue to generate excitement with their frequent appearances in The New Yorker and other leading periodicals. Say Uncle, Ryan's fifth collection, is filled with the same hidden connections, the same slyness and almost gleeful detachment that has delighted readers of her earlier books. Compact, searching, and oddly beautiful, these poems, in the words of Dana Gioia, "take the shape of an idea clarifying itself." "A poetry collection that marries wit and wisdom more brilliantly than any I know.... Poetry as statement and aphorism is rarely heartbreaking, but reading these poems I find myself continually ambushed by a fundamental sorrow, one that hides behind a surface that interweaves sound and sense in immaculately interesting ways." -- Jane Hirshfield, Common Boundary; "The first thing you notice about her poems is an elbow-to-the-ribs playfulness." -- Patricia Holt, San Francisco Chronicle.

Read more less

First there was National Poetry Month, then there was National Poem in Your Pocket Day, now you can carry a poem in your pocket anytime! Published in conjunction with the Academy of American Poets, Poem in Your Pocket enables you to select a poem you love, tear it out neatly from the book, and then carry it with you all day to read, be inspired by, and share with coworkers, family, and friends. This innovative format features 200 poems from Shakespeare to Sexton, cleverly organized by theme. If you’re feeling wistful, flip to the “Sonic Youth” section. If you want to romance your lover and surprise him or her with a seductive sonnet, turn to the “Love and Rockets” section. Now you can easily spread the love of poetry or treasure it in private with Poem in Your Pocket! Whether you’re a fan of Sylvia Plath or Emily Dickinson, Frank O’Hara or Walt Whitman, Poem in Your Pocket has a poem for everyone.

Read more less