How about giving the inaugural honor to our new U.S. poet laureate -- Kay Ryan? That's been the big response among friends and colleagues to my previous post.
Ryan's got great appeal. She's lesbian educator from Marin county whose marriage this summer was one of the 18,000 now in post-Prop-8 limbo -- a compelling representation of the work to be done in the next four years! But Ryan's poetry gently resists "representation." The self in her poems is less a politically proscribed identity than an observer of mystery. Her poetry is delightful -- compressed, rigorously inquisitive, witty and full of wonder -- and would certainly bring something unprecedented to the official proceedings: a quest for contemplation, solitude and slowing down. Her poem "Blandeur," from her collection Say Uncle, begins with the lines:
let less happen.
You can read "Blandeur" in the text of this interview in which Ryan is quoted saying that poetry is "the most secret, the most private form of
communication in language."
See Ryan interviewed earlier this year by Charlie Rose. And check out my previous inaugural candidate, Mark Doty, profiled as the "poet of the year." (Thanks to Silliman's Blog for the links.)
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