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The Best of It: New and Selected Poems
Kay Ryan, named the Pulitzer Prize Winner for Poetry 2010, is just the latest in an amazing array of accolades for this wonderfully accessible, widely loved poet. She was appointed the Library of Congress’s sixteenth poet laureate from 2008 to 2010. Salon has compared her poems to “Fabergé eggs, tiny, ingenious devices that inevitably conceal some hidden wonder.” The two hundred poems in Ryan’s The Best of It offer a stunning retrospective of her work, as well as a swath of never-before-published poems of which are sure to appeal equally to longtime fans and general readers.
265 pages, Hardcover
First published February 8, 2010
151 people are currently reading
2071 people want to read
About the author
Kay Ryan
33 books168 followersBorn in California in 1945 and acknowledged as one of the most original voices in the contemporary landscape, Kay Ryan is the author of several books of poetry, including Flamingo Watching (2006), The Niagara River (2005), and Say Uncle (2000). Her book The Best of It: New and Selected Poems (2010) won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.
Ryan's tightly compressed, rhythmically dense poetry is often compared to that of Emily Dickinson and Marianne Moore; however, Ryan’s often barbed wit and unique facility with “recombinant” rhyme has earned her the status of one of the great living American poets, and led to her appointment as U.S. Poet Laureate in 2008. She held the position for two terms, using the appointment to champion community colleges like the one in Marin County, California where she and her partner Carol Adair taught for over thirty years. In an interview with the Washington City Paper at the end of tenure, Ryan called herself a “whistle-blower” who “advocated for much underpraised and underfunded community colleges across the nation.”
Ryan’s surprising laureateship capped years of outsider-status in the poetry world. Her quizzical, philosophical, often mordant poetry is a product of years of thought. Ryan has said that her poems do not start with imagery or sound, but rather develop “the way an oyster does, with an aggravation.” Critic Meghan O’Rourke has written of her work: “Each poem twists around and back upon its argument like a river retracing its path; they are didactic in spirit, but a bedrock wit supports them.” “Sharks’ Teeth” displays that meandering approach to her subject matter, which, Ryan says, “gives my poems a coolness. I can touch things that are very hot because I’ve given them some distance.”
Kay Ryan is the recipient of several major awards, including fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ingram Merrill Foundation, and the Guggenheim Foundation. She has received the Union League Poetry Prize and the Maurice English Poetry Award, as well as the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize. Since 2006 she has served as a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets.
Ryan's tightly compressed, rhythmically dense poetry is often compared to that of Emily Dickinson and Marianne Moore; however, Ryan’s often barbed wit and unique facility with “recombinant” rhyme has earned her the status of one of the great living American poets, and led to her appointment as U.S. Poet Laureate in 2008. She held the position for two terms, using the appointment to champion community colleges like the one in Marin County, California where she and her partner Carol Adair taught for over thirty years. In an interview with the Washington City Paper at the end of tenure, Ryan called herself a “whistle-blower” who “advocated for much underpraised and underfunded community colleges across the nation.”
Ryan’s surprising laureateship capped years of outsider-status in the poetry world. Her quizzical, philosophical, often mordant poetry is a product of years of thought. Ryan has said that her poems do not start with imagery or sound, but rather develop “the way an oyster does, with an aggravation.” Critic Meghan O’Rourke has written of her work: “Each poem twists around and back upon its argument like a river retracing its path; they are didactic in spirit, but a bedrock wit supports them.” “Sharks’ Teeth” displays that meandering approach to her subject matter, which, Ryan says, “gives my poems a coolness. I can touch things that are very hot because I’ve given them some distance.”
Kay Ryan is the recipient of several major awards, including fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ingram Merrill Foundation, and the Guggenheim Foundation. She has received the Union League Poetry Prize and the Maurice English Poetry Award, as well as the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize. Since 2006 she has served as a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets.
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December 17, 2012
The Best of It collects new and selected poems from sixteenth US Poet Laureate Kay Ryan’s career covering 1993-2005. A highly decorated poet, Ryan teaches English at the College of Marin in California (her partner Carol Adair also taught there until her death in 2009) and has released eight collections of poetry. Ryan write tight little poems teeming with figurative language and marching to a rhythmic beat to emphasize her rhyme schemes that marries the traditional poetry styles of old with modern poetry.
As a sort of ‘best of’, this collection left me a bit underwhelmed. There were some wonderful and touching poems, but much did not particularly grab me. I can see why many people would really enjoy her poetry, and reading a bit about her life reveals an impressive woman with a wonderful mind, but this just fell a bit flat for me. I did enjoy her method of blending the traditional with the modern, and the way her poem often spoke to the title, either allowing the title to be the actual first lines, or to posit and idea that the poem would then look up to the top of the page at and deconstruct. It was the rhyming and overly bouncy rhythm that wore thin on me, which happened in far too many poems. Which may be a point of personal pretention as I don’t mind rhyming in older poems, but in these it just felt, well, cheesy and often times forced. It occasionally played out in my head like corny rap lyrics that would be sung over preset Casio beats. This is still a great collection to sample however, and if you enjoy rhyming poetry you might end up adoring Kay Ryan. She is deserving of praise.
3/5
The Edges of TimeRyan often takes a small, specific idea or moment, and unlocks a quick insight, offering a surprising amount of depth from such a small idea and in such small paper space. While her poems rarely exceed a few short lines, they are filled with poetic devices and charge forward to the rhythmic quality of her words. She fuses her techniques together so well that it is difficult to tell which device was the ultimate goal for the poem, all of them working together in unison to create a brief immaculate image. This rhythm, often iambic, gives the poetry an older feel to it, and allows her to construct interesting rhyme structures. Many of her rhymes are interior rhymes that are brought out and highlighted by the rhythm of her words.
It is at the edges
that time thins.
Time which had been
dense and viscous
as amber suspending
intentions like bees
unseizes them. A
humming begins,
apparently coming
from stacks of
put–off things or
just in back. A
racket of claims now,
as time flattens. A
glittering fan of things
competing to happen,
brilliant and urgent
as fish when seas
retreat.
AtlasI must admit, however, that the rhythm and rhymes of her poetry is my greatest complain with it. It is cute and fun at times, but it is often too much. The rhyming to her poems is like eating a piece of cake with frosting so rich that you cannot take more than a few bites without feeling sick. Much of her poetry is playful and witty, while always retaining an overall seriousness to the poem, yet the playfulness did not charm me the way it does with, say, Billy Collins. I hate to say it, but reading this reminded me of why I love Collins and I felt that Ryan pales in comparison. However, that is not a fair comparison to make, as both poets have radically different styles and goals, but all in all I prefer Collins. There were some very touching poems in here, and several that did grab me. For example, I loved her poem on Hide & Seek, which really reminded me of my 2 year old daughter and her current ‘hiding method’ of standing in the middle of the room with a blanket over her head yelling ‘Where Tilly go?!’:
Extreme exertion
isolates a person
from help,
discovered Atlas.
Once a certain
shoulder-to-burden
ratio collapses,
there is so little
others can do:
they can’t
lend a hand
with Brazil
and not stand
on Peru.
Hide & SeekRyan does take a fun look at poetry as an art form and often uses it as a commentary on other poets. A good quarter of the poems contained in this collection begin with the quote to which they are either inspired by, or in response to. Marianne Moore, Annie Dillard, and Joseph Brodsky are the most common writers spoken to through poetry, and there are several poems based on facts from Ripely’s Believe It Or Not!, such as her poem on stage productions or her poem about Matrigupta (Matrigupta wrote a poem that so pleased Rajah Vicraama Ditya that he was given the state of Kashmir for his efforts, which he ruled from 118-123 until abdicating to become a recluse). She even dedicates a poem to W.G. Sebald:
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.
He Lit a Fire With IciclesHer commentary on language, translation and poetry in general are some of the best aspects of this collection.
This was the work
of St. Sebolt, one
of his miracles:
he lit a fire with
icicles. He struck
them like a steel
to flint, did St.
Sebolt. It
makes sense
only at a certain
body heat. How
cold he had
to get to learn
that ice would
burn. How cold
he had to stay.
When he could
feel his feet
he had to
back away.
Poetry is a Kind of Money
Poetry is a kind of money
whose value depends upon reserves.
It’s not the paper it’s written on
or its self-announced denomination,
but the bullion, sweated from the earth
and hidden, which preserves its worth.
Nobody knows how this works,
and how can it? Why does something
stacked in some secret bank or cabinet,
some miser’s trove, far back, lambent,
and gloated over by its golem, make us
so solemnly convinced of the transaction
when Mandelstam says love, even
in translation?
As a sort of ‘best of’, this collection left me a bit underwhelmed. There were some wonderful and touching poems, but much did not particularly grab me. I can see why many people would really enjoy her poetry, and reading a bit about her life reveals an impressive woman with a wonderful mind, but this just fell a bit flat for me. I did enjoy her method of blending the traditional with the modern, and the way her poem often spoke to the title, either allowing the title to be the actual first lines, or to posit and idea that the poem would then look up to the top of the page at and deconstruct. It was the rhyming and overly bouncy rhythm that wore thin on me, which happened in far too many poems. Which may be a point of personal pretention as I don’t mind rhyming in older poems, but in these it just felt, well, cheesy and often times forced. It occasionally played out in my head like corny rap lyrics that would be sung over preset Casio beats. This is still a great collection to sample however, and if you enjoy rhyming poetry you might end up adoring Kay Ryan. She is deserving of praise.
3/5
Failure
Like slime
inside a
stagnant tank
its green
deepening
from lime
to emerald
a dank
but less
ephemeral
efflorescence
than success
is in general.
The Best of It
However carved up
or pared down we get,
we keep on making
the best of it as though
it doesn’t matter that
our acre’s down to
a square foot. As
though our garden
could be one bean
and we’d rejoice if
it flourishes, as
though one bean
could nourish us.
Among English Verbs
Among English verbs,
"to die" is oddest in its
eagerness to be "dead",
immodest in its
haste to be told-
a verb alchemical
in the head:
one speck of its gold
and a whole life's lead.
Green Hills
Their green flanks
and swells are not
flesh in any sense
matching ours,
we tell ourselves.
Nor their green
breast nor their
green shoulder nor
the languor of their
rolling over.
October 13, 2022
2 generous stars
"The Best of It" is a retrospective of Kay Ryan's poetic work chosen from 4 of her books: Flamingo Watching (1994), Elephant Rocks (1996), Say Uncle (2000), The Niagara River (2005), as well as new poems.
I was not impressed.
REALLY not impressed.
Very few of the pieces contain arresting or even interesting images, which one might reasonably expect from poetry. The topics of the over a hundred works are banal rehashes of facts gleaned from popular science articles or are overly general homespun "wisdom from grandma" that you'd expect to see embroidered on a throw pillow or in bold on the cover of a self-help book.
It didn't need to be like that. A good number of the pieces start off well but then hit a surprise slant rhyme of the school kid "cat-mat" variety where it stumbles, dithers around for two or three lines and limps to a close with all the gusto of a deflating balloon.
Like she was attempting Shel Silverstein for adults and failed horribly.
After a while you start to see that's her style. Especially the annoyingly childish slant rhyme.
That's not to say she didn't get a few decent to good ones in, which is why 2 stars not 1. (For a 1 star from me, you have to make me angry, not simply annoyed.) Many of the best ones come from her earliest work, though. Her newer stuff is even more bland, generalised and that greatest of sins: boring.
Not recommended unless you're taking a poetry class or are a consummate poetry reader.
"The Best of It" is a retrospective of Kay Ryan's poetic work chosen from 4 of her books: Flamingo Watching (1994), Elephant Rocks (1996), Say Uncle (2000), The Niagara River (2005), as well as new poems.
I was not impressed.
REALLY not impressed.
Very few of the pieces contain arresting or even interesting images, which one might reasonably expect from poetry. The topics of the over a hundred works are banal rehashes of facts gleaned from popular science articles or are overly general homespun "wisdom from grandma" that you'd expect to see embroidered on a throw pillow or in bold on the cover of a self-help book.
It didn't need to be like that. A good number of the pieces start off well but then hit a surprise slant rhyme of the school kid "cat-mat" variety where it stumbles, dithers around for two or three lines and limps to a close with all the gusto of a deflating balloon.
Like she was attempting Shel Silverstein for adults and failed horribly.
After a while you start to see that's her style. Especially the annoyingly childish slant rhyme.
That's not to say she didn't get a few decent to good ones in, which is why 2 stars not 1. (For a 1 star from me, you have to make me angry, not simply annoyed.) Many of the best ones come from her earliest work, though. Her newer stuff is even more bland, generalised and that greatest of sins: boring.
Not recommended unless you're taking a poetry class or are a consummate poetry reader.
Want to read
June 27, 2014A 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.
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.
March 14, 2020
I was hoping I would love this. It won a Pulitzer Prize. It just isn't my favorite collection of poetry.
This one I could relate to though, living in Colorado-
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.
This one I could relate to though, living in Colorado-
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.
July 14, 2011
Lets face it, poetry is the wheat grass juice of literature. Everyone says that it's great for you (and it is) but it smells like your lawn and tastes like gritty pond scum.
When someone wants to look too smart for the room, poetry is the stick they beat you with. When someone wants to show how dramatic, artsy and depressed they are, it's the prop of choice. Emo kids love it. As do the elderly.
For me, poetry was in the same catagory as the advanced Maths: I know they exist and I'm sure someone else is taking care of it.
Kay Ryan's work is not something I read to impress anyone or to make myself feel smarter. I read an essay on her work and it made want to try it. I fully expected to skim or quit after four or five pages. I surprised myself.
It took some adjustments on my part. Normally, I read quickly, but I kept getting lost and tangled up. My brain couldn't get the beats right in the rhyme scheme. So, I read the poems outloud and slowly. It's not like any other reading I've done.
I've seen some of the Goodreads reviews of this book and some people (who are much more familiar and literate with poetry) have complained that the collection isn't deep or revelatory or whatever. They may be right, I'm not qualified to answer that. I just know that many of them made me laugh or think or feel a little sad.
So I'm now one of those annoying people that could, if they wanted to, discuss poetry. I guess stranger things have happened; although I bet it's a pretty short list.
July 16, 2015
Along with Anne Carson, Kay Ryan has long been my favorite contemporary poet, so I was pleased to see her become our Poet Laureate a few years back, and then delighted to attend a reading and lecture last year, which is where I picked up this collection. She signed it "for Jesse from the San Joaquin," as I had asked her where exactly she had grown up, and the location turned out to be as small and unknown as my own hometown (though only about 45 minutes apart, neither of us had heard of the other, something which is not surprising). As for now, we're both Central Valley expats settled in the Bay Area.
I've often seen Ryan's poems described as fine cut diamonds, and I won't bother trying to come up with a better description—each are remarkably compact (about the length of a typical stanza), constructed with a dazzling precision and conciseness, and sparkle endlessly with wit and insight. I revisit this often with much pleasure.
I've often seen Ryan's poems described as fine cut diamonds, and I won't bother trying to come up with a better description—each are remarkably compact (about the length of a typical stanza), constructed with a dazzling precision and conciseness, and sparkle endlessly with wit and insight. I revisit this often with much pleasure.
April 17, 2015
Despite winning the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 2010 and being the United States Poet Laureate 2008-2010, this poet was unfamiliar to me as my knowledge of American poetry is not extensive. I was excited to discover her work and looked forward to delving into this collection of poems chosen by her as representative of her earlier and later poems. The book contains over 200 poems. That alone makes it worth investing time in.
I particularly liked Virga. In this poem I liked the use of internal rhyme throughout. Others I liked included:
The Edges of Time
Polish and Balm
Retroactive
Shift
Spiderweb
Patience
Tune
Things Shouldn’t Be So Hard
Stardust
Thin
Chop
I liked the way the poet often started with an object and let thoughts and ideas fan out from it. In some poems I found the rhymes a little intrusive but that was the exception rather than the rule. At first read I wasn’t as impressed as I had expected to be given the status of this poet, but in re-read the poems crept upon me and pulled me in. This is an enjoyable and polished collection I am sure I will return to.
I particularly liked Virga. In this poem I liked the use of internal rhyme throughout. Others I liked included:
The Edges of Time
Polish and Balm
Retroactive
Shift
Spiderweb
Patience
Tune
Things Shouldn’t Be So Hard
Stardust
Thin
Chop
I liked the way the poet often started with an object and let thoughts and ideas fan out from it. In some poems I found the rhymes a little intrusive but that was the exception rather than the rule. At first read I wasn’t as impressed as I had expected to be given the status of this poet, but in re-read the poems crept upon me and pulled me in. This is an enjoyable and polished collection I am sure I will return to.
April 1, 2012
I'm going to return this book to the library, then request it again. A list of poems I especially like: Shift, Spiderweb, Leaving Spaces, Force, Persiflage, Caught. And here is a short poem that exemplifies what I like about Kay Ryan.
EMPTINESS
Emptiness cannot be
compressed. Nor can it
fight abuse. Nor is there
an endless West hosting
elk, antelope, and the
tough cayuse. This is
true also of the mind:
it can get used.
3/31/12
I love this book so much that it's hard to mark it read, as I'm sure it will stay on my reading table for me to dip into time and time again. So many of the poems have personal meaning for me. I have read one at a time when it directly informed my inner life--more than once.
EMPTINESS
Emptiness cannot be
compressed. Nor can it
fight abuse. Nor is there
an endless West hosting
elk, antelope, and the
tough cayuse. This is
true also of the mind:
it can get used.
3/31/12
I love this book so much that it's hard to mark it read, as I'm sure it will stay on my reading table for me to dip into time and time again. So many of the poems have personal meaning for me. I have read one at a time when it directly informed my inner life--more than once.
June 25, 2016
Smart, inventive, observant, the poems of Kay Ryan are a genuine delight. The lesser poems in this New and Selected are the fallouts of her strengths. When the love for epigram trumps the fire of imagination. When the final rhyming pair clicks shut but the box is empty. "Things Shouldn't Be So Hard" affords a rare glimpse into the private life. It leaves me wanting more, not for the sake of voyeurism, but for the sake of the complete victory.
December 25, 2018
Not sure about this United States Poet Laureate, MacArthur Fellow, and Pulitzer Prize winning poet's other works, but this collection is a throw away. Honestly, it's almost unreadable. I seldom bother to write poetry reviews because most collections have something special to them, regardless of content, style, or form. But there are award-winning, widely published, widely sold books like this one that bother (and puzzle) me. The short two to three word lines have no rhythm or reason. Ryan might as well have placed one word per line for 300 pages. Maybe I ought to construct one or two word lines for pages and pages in my next collection!
April 16, 2010
The poems in Kay Ryan's astonishing collection "The Best of It: New and Selected Poems" are so crisp and immediate that they seem effortless. It is only upon closer inspection that these little miracles of compression begin to give up their secrets, their engaging surfaces gradually yielding ever more layers of nuance.
Ryan's verse reminds one not so much of conventional narrative poems as of some cunningly made artifacts, like those tiny Russian nesting dolls, or an exquisite enameled box that, unsprung, yields an interior vista of startling clarity.
"The Best of It" collects four previous volumes, going back to 1994, and adds 24 new poems. The trajectory of a poet's career in this country, today, does not usually conform to a smooth, triumphalist incline, so it is satisfying to know that Kay Ryan is serving as the U.S. Poet Laureate -- a kind of ambassador for the art.
Taken as a whole, "The Best of It" displays an astounding consistency of tone and quality, with the later work and the new poems perhaps shading a bit toward an elegant midcareer austerity.
One of the many charms here is accessibility: the poems tend toward the bite-size (only a few spill over onto a second page), and their initial effect is of a pleasing briskness, free of the dense opacity and deliberate "difficulty" that makes so much contemporary poetry into the readerly equivalent of a trip to the dentist.
Ryan crafts startling rhymes ("hibiscus / to kiss," and "cracked / exact") and jittery rhythms that often stop short or feature a stress falling on an unexpected syllable, with a sideways hop. They are little exploders of cliche: "A bitter pill doesn't need to be swallowed to work," begins one, while waiting for "The Other Shoe" to drop wouldn't be so bad "if the undropped / didn't congregate / with the undropped . . . acquiring density / and weight."
This is not to say that Ryan's poems are glib or facile; on the contrary, they often address abstractions and proclaim paradoxes with vigor, as in "Forgetting":"Forgetting takes space. Forgotten matters displace / as much anything else as / anything else." For all their colloquial style and down-home wit, Ryan's poems tend to circle deeply philosophical issues."Whatever is done," states one, "leaves a hole in the / possible." Ryan's words mirror her mind, in the sense that both are quick and idiosyncratic, likely to land on the unlikely but inspired thought.
These gifts call to mind some illustrious predecessors, including Emily Dickinson, Wallace Stevens, Marianne Moore and Robert Frost. Despite the echoes, though, Ryan is so arresting and genuinely original that her book stays in the mind in a way unlike much contemporary poetry, so often impenetrable and self-absorbed. In today's world of exploding self-expression and relentless ephemera, Kay Ryan sticks.
FROM THE CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER, April 13, 2010.
Ryan's verse reminds one not so much of conventional narrative poems as of some cunningly made artifacts, like those tiny Russian nesting dolls, or an exquisite enameled box that, unsprung, yields an interior vista of startling clarity.
"The Best of It" collects four previous volumes, going back to 1994, and adds 24 new poems. The trajectory of a poet's career in this country, today, does not usually conform to a smooth, triumphalist incline, so it is satisfying to know that Kay Ryan is serving as the U.S. Poet Laureate -- a kind of ambassador for the art.
Taken as a whole, "The Best of It" displays an astounding consistency of tone and quality, with the later work and the new poems perhaps shading a bit toward an elegant midcareer austerity.
One of the many charms here is accessibility: the poems tend toward the bite-size (only a few spill over onto a second page), and their initial effect is of a pleasing briskness, free of the dense opacity and deliberate "difficulty" that makes so much contemporary poetry into the readerly equivalent of a trip to the dentist.
Ryan crafts startling rhymes ("hibiscus / to kiss," and "cracked / exact") and jittery rhythms that often stop short or feature a stress falling on an unexpected syllable, with a sideways hop. They are little exploders of cliche: "A bitter pill doesn't need to be swallowed to work," begins one, while waiting for "The Other Shoe" to drop wouldn't be so bad "if the undropped / didn't congregate / with the undropped . . . acquiring density / and weight."
This is not to say that Ryan's poems are glib or facile; on the contrary, they often address abstractions and proclaim paradoxes with vigor, as in "Forgetting":"Forgetting takes space. Forgotten matters displace / as much anything else as / anything else." For all their colloquial style and down-home wit, Ryan's poems tend to circle deeply philosophical issues."Whatever is done," states one, "leaves a hole in the / possible." Ryan's words mirror her mind, in the sense that both are quick and idiosyncratic, likely to land on the unlikely but inspired thought.
These gifts call to mind some illustrious predecessors, including Emily Dickinson, Wallace Stevens, Marianne Moore and Robert Frost. Despite the echoes, though, Ryan is so arresting and genuinely original that her book stays in the mind in a way unlike much contemporary poetry, so often impenetrable and self-absorbed. In today's world of exploding self-expression and relentless ephemera, Kay Ryan sticks.
FROM THE CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER, April 13, 2010.
February 19, 2011
I was steered toward reading Kay Ryan by a critical appraisal comparing her to Dickinson. I think the comparison fitting. Ryan's poems, too, are short, stabbing darts which are deceptively simple and easy. The brevity of her form helps to create the deception, but held within the rind of that simple form is a denser, meatier thought. The reader's task, as with all poetry, is to peel away the rind to get at the pulp within. Each of the poems in The Best of It, like Dickinson's poems, is a radiance. They take as their subjects the everyday and the common. Simple, basic titles like "Cloud" and "Coming and Going" and "How Birds Sing" head each page like branches from which is hung ripe and philosophical fruit. They're difficult and opaque but Ryan isn't as Delphic as Dickinson. She tells it slant just as Dickinson famously did--in fact, a poem here carries that title, "Slant"--but she's sleek and streamlined for our times, and I think that the elegance and nimbleness of her expression and rhyming helps to illuminate her work. Sometimes a Ryan poem will light its own way, will throw a beacon to guide the reader. This was my first experience with Ryan. Now I want to read the rest of it.
March 26, 2011
Is this worth reading? Well over 90% of these poems are not. There is nothing breathtaking in the language, and few of these poems have a governing idea that seems profound enough to write a poem about. I am baffled by her popularity and the high rating others have given this book. There are occasional poems, perhaps eight in this collection, which the author considers her best work, which express something in a very nice way. These were good enough that I make myself slog through the rest hoping for more. I guess it was worth it, but barely. Not to my taste, clearly.
November 30, 2024
A Recent United States Poet Laureate
In 1936, the Library of Congress received a large endowment for the "maintenance of a chair of Poetry of the English language". The following year, the Library made its first appointment to the position of "Consultant in Poetry". The position soon became informally known as the United States Poet Laureate. In 1985, Congress passed a law explicitly designating the Consultant position as America's Poet Laureate. It is valuable for the United States to have a position of Poet Laureate to recognize the importance of poetry and literature to American life. A recent book, The Poets Laureate Anthology" published in association with the Library of Congress offers an excellent overview of and selection from America's Poet Laureates. The Poets Laureate Anthology
The American poet Kay Ryan (b. 1945), a long-term resident of California, served two terms as Poet Laureate from 2008 -- 2010. During her tenure, she prepared this anthology of her work, "The Best of It" (2010), which consists of poems she selected from four earlier books of poetry together with a substantial group of new poems. The volume includes well over 200 poems. In the book, Ryan presents her newest poems first followed by a selection in chronological order, beginning with the earliest works, from her previous books. In 2011, Ryan was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry for "The Best of It".
Ryan writes largely apart from academic writers of poetry, and she has developed a distinctive style. Here are some of the things I found in my reading. Ryan's poems are almost always short. They consist of short lines of few syllables. Ryan is best-known for her use of rhyme. Many of her poems use rhymes, half-rhymes or alliteration. Her rhymes appear at the end of lines but she also uses hidden rhymes with the rhymed words appearing at the end of a line and at the middle of another line or with both words in the middle of a line. Frequently the rhymes are not exact.
Another distinctive quality of the poems is their lack of self-reference. Many poets write about themselves and their intimate feelings and experiences, and readers tend to expect this type of self-revelation from poetry. The pronoun "I" appears infrequently in Ryan's poetry. She speaks more often in terms of "we" or "you" when she uses pronouns at all. This gives the poems a meditative character as opposed to a character that overtly expresses strong individual feeling. Ryan is not a confessional poet; and her writing seems generally directed outside herself.
Ryan's poems have immediacy, accessibility and are easy to read. They are also quirky with odd word choices and rhythms and unusual word choices in places which will make the reader pause. The poems tend toward irony and whimsy. Ryan's work has been described as a "poetics of play" and she has written that "[t]here's always a smidegen of laughter in it, however lonely or lost. If you feel worse after you've read it, then I have failed." There is also a serious tone not far from the surface in most of Ryan's poems. The poems and the volume both encourage quick reading followed by a return and thought about selected poems. The poems have a broad range of themes. The titles are important and tend to be developed with a twist in many of the poems. Many poems begin with a short important epigraph or quotation. The most frequently recurring subject appears to be animals, as Ryan writes about flamingos, crustaceans, crows, ospreys, cats, sharks, horses, snakes, herring, elephants, and many other animals. These poems have a quality of fable similar to the poems of Marianne Moore, who appears to be an important influence on Ryan.
The title of the volume, "The Best of It" is taken from a poem Ryan published in a volume called "The Niagra River" in 2005. The tone is quiet, and, it seems to me both celebratory and ironic about the qualities of persistence and making do with little. Here it is:
"However carved up
or pared down we get,
we keep on making
the best of it as though
it doesn't matter that
our acre's down to
a square foot. As
though our garden
could be one bean
and we'd rejoice if
it flourishes, as
though one bean could nourish us."
One of the many animal poems also deserves to be quoted. Here is a poem called "Turtle" derived from a 1994 collection, "Flamingo Watching". Note the many rhymes and half-rhymes.
"Who would be a turtle who could help it?
A barely mobile hard roll, a four-oared helmet,
she can ill afford the chances she must take
in rowing toward the grasses that she eats.
Her track is graceless, like dragging
a packing case places, and almost any slope
defeats her modest hopes. Even being practical,
she's often stuck up to the axle on her way
to something edible. With everything optimal,
she skirts the ditch which would convert
her shell into a serving dish. She lives
below luck-level, never imagining some lottery
will change her load of pottery to wings.
Her only levity is patience,
The sport of truly chastened things."
Readers who want to explore contemporary American poetry will enjoy this collection of poems by Kay Ryan.
Robin Friedman
In 1936, the Library of Congress received a large endowment for the "maintenance of a chair of Poetry of the English language". The following year, the Library made its first appointment to the position of "Consultant in Poetry". The position soon became informally known as the United States Poet Laureate. In 1985, Congress passed a law explicitly designating the Consultant position as America's Poet Laureate. It is valuable for the United States to have a position of Poet Laureate to recognize the importance of poetry and literature to American life. A recent book, The Poets Laureate Anthology" published in association with the Library of Congress offers an excellent overview of and selection from America's Poet Laureates. The Poets Laureate Anthology
The American poet Kay Ryan (b. 1945), a long-term resident of California, served two terms as Poet Laureate from 2008 -- 2010. During her tenure, she prepared this anthology of her work, "The Best of It" (2010), which consists of poems she selected from four earlier books of poetry together with a substantial group of new poems. The volume includes well over 200 poems. In the book, Ryan presents her newest poems first followed by a selection in chronological order, beginning with the earliest works, from her previous books. In 2011, Ryan was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry for "The Best of It".
Ryan writes largely apart from academic writers of poetry, and she has developed a distinctive style. Here are some of the things I found in my reading. Ryan's poems are almost always short. They consist of short lines of few syllables. Ryan is best-known for her use of rhyme. Many of her poems use rhymes, half-rhymes or alliteration. Her rhymes appear at the end of lines but she also uses hidden rhymes with the rhymed words appearing at the end of a line and at the middle of another line or with both words in the middle of a line. Frequently the rhymes are not exact.
Another distinctive quality of the poems is their lack of self-reference. Many poets write about themselves and their intimate feelings and experiences, and readers tend to expect this type of self-revelation from poetry. The pronoun "I" appears infrequently in Ryan's poetry. She speaks more often in terms of "we" or "you" when she uses pronouns at all. This gives the poems a meditative character as opposed to a character that overtly expresses strong individual feeling. Ryan is not a confessional poet; and her writing seems generally directed outside herself.
Ryan's poems have immediacy, accessibility and are easy to read. They are also quirky with odd word choices and rhythms and unusual word choices in places which will make the reader pause. The poems tend toward irony and whimsy. Ryan's work has been described as a "poetics of play" and she has written that "[t]here's always a smidegen of laughter in it, however lonely or lost. If you feel worse after you've read it, then I have failed." There is also a serious tone not far from the surface in most of Ryan's poems. The poems and the volume both encourage quick reading followed by a return and thought about selected poems. The poems have a broad range of themes. The titles are important and tend to be developed with a twist in many of the poems. Many poems begin with a short important epigraph or quotation. The most frequently recurring subject appears to be animals, as Ryan writes about flamingos, crustaceans, crows, ospreys, cats, sharks, horses, snakes, herring, elephants, and many other animals. These poems have a quality of fable similar to the poems of Marianne Moore, who appears to be an important influence on Ryan.
The title of the volume, "The Best of It" is taken from a poem Ryan published in a volume called "The Niagra River" in 2005. The tone is quiet, and, it seems to me both celebratory and ironic about the qualities of persistence and making do with little. Here it is:
"However carved up
or pared down we get,
we keep on making
the best of it as though
it doesn't matter that
our acre's down to
a square foot. As
though our garden
could be one bean
and we'd rejoice if
it flourishes, as
though one bean could nourish us."
One of the many animal poems also deserves to be quoted. Here is a poem called "Turtle" derived from a 1994 collection, "Flamingo Watching". Note the many rhymes and half-rhymes.
"Who would be a turtle who could help it?
A barely mobile hard roll, a four-oared helmet,
she can ill afford the chances she must take
in rowing toward the grasses that she eats.
Her track is graceless, like dragging
a packing case places, and almost any slope
defeats her modest hopes. Even being practical,
she's often stuck up to the axle on her way
to something edible. With everything optimal,
she skirts the ditch which would convert
her shell into a serving dish. She lives
below luck-level, never imagining some lottery
will change her load of pottery to wings.
Her only levity is patience,
The sport of truly chastened things."
Readers who want to explore contemporary American poetry will enjoy this collection of poems by Kay Ryan.
Robin Friedman
May 31, 2017
I ate these poems in a night. They're small and contain a satisfying crunch, like cereal. With every spoonful of a poem, you'll crave more. When at the end, you've consumed them all, pour yourself another bowl and do it all over again.
June 17, 2023
“TRAIN-TRACK FIGURE”
Imagine a
train-track figure
made of sliver
over sliver of
between-car
vision, each
slice too brief
to add detail
or deepen: that
could be a hat
if it's a person
if it's a person
if it's a person.
Just the same
scant information
timed to supplant
the same scant
information.
TITLE—The Best of It
AUTHOR—Kay Ryan
PUBLISHED—2010 (with some poems published as early as 1994)
PUBLISHER—Grove Press (new york)
GENRE—poetry
MAIN THEMES/SUBJECTS—life’s rhythms and cycles, the beauty & fascination in the mundane, Nature poetry (esp. animals, weather, & landscapes), science poetry (esp. physics, archaeology, & astronomy), human history & legacy, philosophy & psychology, compelling wordplay
WRITING STYLE—🌕🌕🌕🌕🌖
COLLECTION/FLOW—🌕🌕🌕🌕🌚
BONUS ELEMENT/S—Ryan’s Nature poetry was especially precious and perceptive.
PHILOSOPHY—🌕🌕🌕🌕🌚
“PAIRED THINGS”
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
bird tracks 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
bandy-legged upon the ground,
a common crow?
My thoughts:
A different kind of poetry collection than what I usually pick up but I read her ELEPHANT ROCKS a couple years ago and had wanted to read more from her so when I spotted this collection at a library book sale I decided it was a sign and I Ryan’s style and the themes and content of her work on this reading utterly absorbing. I especially loved the subtle rhythms of her language and the structure of the poems.
I would recommend this book to readers who are newer to poetry and maybe tend to be more science or “left-brain” oriented. This book is best read slowly—digesting just a few poems each day.
Final note: I’ll definitely be adding more Kay Ryan to my TBR in the future!
“A CERTAIN KIND OF EDEN”
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.
🌕🌕🌕🌕🌗
Further Reading—
- Aimee Nezhukumatathil
- Robert Frost—TBR
March 5, 2012
I have to express a lot of disappointment reading this collection. I had to keep pressing my snooze alarm to prevent myself from falling asleep. It was quite telling to look down the list of titles in the Table of Contents. Not one caught my eye as something different or exciting. And the poems themselves were the same way: just very boring.
Here's an example of one of the best:
Drops in the Bucket
At first
each drop
makes its
own pock
against the tin.
In time
there is a
thin lacquer
which is
layered and
relayered
till there's
a quantity
of water
with its
own skin
and sense
of purpose,
shocked at
each new violation
of its surface.
And here's the title poem:
The Best of It
However carved up
or pared down we get,
we keep on making
the best of it as though
it doesn't matter that
our acre's down to
a square foot. As
though our garden
could be one bean
and we'd rejoice if
it flourishes, as
though one bean
could nourish us.
Nice poems, but there are no better ones, and plenty of worse ones. And they are mostly in the same style. If Kay Ryan made poet laureate, then I got a shot at winning the nobel prize for bleeping literature.
Here's an example of one of the best:
Drops in the Bucket
At first
each drop
makes its
own pock
against the tin.
In time
there is a
thin lacquer
which is
layered and
relayered
till there's
a quantity
of water
with its
own skin
and sense
of purpose,
shocked at
each new violation
of its surface.
And here's the title poem:
The Best of It
However carved up
or pared down we get,
we keep on making
the best of it as though
it doesn't matter that
our acre's down to
a square foot. As
though our garden
could be one bean
and we'd rejoice if
it flourishes, as
though one bean
could nourish us.
Nice poems, but there are no better ones, and plenty of worse ones. And they are mostly in the same style. If Kay Ryan made poet laureate, then I got a shot at winning the nobel prize for bleeping literature.
January 2, 2020
Like Marianne Moore and Emily Dickinson, Kay Ryan has many deceptively simple poems that later turn out to become my favorites. I start by blowing by them, like the idiot I reliably am, and then keep circling back to them again and again. Favorites include: "Mockingbird", "Say Uncle", "Bad Day", and "Why We Must Struggle" (with it's lovely echoes of Dickinson's "Success is Counted Sweetest.")
For many years I kept a tiny handwritten copy of "New Clothes" tucked in front of my bank card, but when it went missing I did not replace it as I now I have the closing lines tucked in the little wallet that I hope will be stolen from me last: "You will cast aside / something you cherish / when the tailors whisper, / 'Only you could wear this.' / It's almost never clothes / such as the emperor bought // but it's always something close / to something you've got."
For many years I kept a tiny handwritten copy of "New Clothes" tucked in front of my bank card, but when it went missing I did not replace it as I now I have the closing lines tucked in the little wallet that I hope will be stolen from me last: "You will cast aside / something you cherish / when the tailors whisper, / 'Only you could wear this.' / It's almost never clothes / such as the emperor bought // but it's always something close / to something you've got."
March 31, 2010
This is the one of book I enjoyed the most in my recent poetry marathon.
on the review of the cover stated that great poetry inspire us with the music of language and force of wisdom. I felt that about this collection.
Losses
Most losses add something -
a new socket or silence,
a gap in a personal
archipelago od islands.
We have that difference
to visit - itself
a going -on of sorts.
But there are other losses
so far beyond report
that they leave holes
in holes only
likes the ends of the
long and lonely lives
of castaways
thought dead but not..
on the review of the cover stated that great poetry inspire us with the music of language and force of wisdom. I felt that about this collection.
Losses
Most losses add something -
a new socket or silence,
a gap in a personal
archipelago od islands.
We have that difference
to visit - itself
a going -on of sorts.
But there are other losses
so far beyond report
that they leave holes
in holes only
likes the ends of the
long and lonely lives
of castaways
thought dead but not..
June 14, 2015
In my bookcase for a few years - the bookcase closest to my bed. A collection I keep returning to.
April 7, 2023
I was introduced to Kay Ryan while listening to Billy Collins’ poetry broadcast and adored her phenomenal collection of essays, Synthesizing Gravity. Since then I’ve been working my way through The Best of It. I haven’t understood a fraction of what she’s writing, but I love it. Her poems are brief and beautiful and clever and impossibly controlled. I’m going to need to work my way through them again. So lovely!
July 10, 2019
After over two years of slowly making my way through this, I finally reached the end of the road. Poetry isn't necessarily my bread and butter but Ryan is an enjoyable poet for those looking to dip their toe in the water.
There were times where I definitely had my patience tried and I certainly wasn't into each and every one of these, but overall there are clever, well-written poems here. There's humor where you might expect cerebral, dry verse. Ryan is a good place to start if you're wanting to get into poetry. Thanks, Haines.
There were times where I definitely had my patience tried and I certainly wasn't into each and every one of these, but overall there are clever, well-written poems here. There's humor where you might expect cerebral, dry verse. Ryan is a good place to start if you're wanting to get into poetry. Thanks, Haines.
November 21, 2023
I’m a simp for short poems that are witty yet profound, funny yet meaningful. This book is full of those, so needless to say, I loved it. (In the same vein as Billy Collins, but way better.)
October 10, 2024
Lovely book of poetry, so much variety. Maybe too much variety? I think I wanted it to be a little shorter. I particularly liked “Dogleg” but I couldn’t tell you why. I’d recommend grazing rather than reading straight through.
October 28, 2024
The Niagara River, After Zeno, Ideal Audience, and Grazing Horses are a few of my favorites.
December 15, 2018
I had a lot of things to do today, but none of them got done. These are short, crisp poems that seem like they’d be easy to breeze through, acerbic little bites that are often more cerebral than emotional. But I lingered over them, re-reading them and, when I’d finished the book, flipping back to the beginning to read them again. I also spent a good deal of time trying to foist them on other people. I’m not sure how successful I’ve been, so here: I’ll take a stab with you, too.
Lossless
Most losses add something —
a new socket or silence,
a gap in a personal
archipelago of islands.
We have that difference
to visit — itself
a going-on of sorts.
But there are other losses
so far beyond report
that they leave holes
in holes only
like the ends of the
long and lonely lives
of castaways
thought dead but not.
Glass Slippers
Despite the hard luck
of the ugly stepsisters
most people’s feet will fit
into glass slippers.
The arch rises, the heel
tapers, the toes align
in descending order
and the whole thing slides
without talcum powder
into the test slipper.
We can shape to the
dreams of another; we are
eager to yield. It is a
mutual pleasure to the holder
of the slipper and to the
foot held. It is a singular
moment — tender, improbable,
and as yet unclouded by the
problems that hobble the pair
when they discover that
the matching slipper
isn’t anywhere, nor does
the bare foot even share
the shape of the other.
When they compare,
the slippered foot makes
the other odder: it looks
like a hoof. So many miracles
don’t start back far enough.
Lossless
Most losses add something —
a new socket or silence,
a gap in a personal
archipelago of islands.
We have that difference
to visit — itself
a going-on of sorts.
But there are other losses
so far beyond report
that they leave holes
in holes only
like the ends of the
long and lonely lives
of castaways
thought dead but not.
Glass Slippers
Despite the hard luck
of the ugly stepsisters
most people’s feet will fit
into glass slippers.
The arch rises, the heel
tapers, the toes align
in descending order
and the whole thing slides
without talcum powder
into the test slipper.
We can shape to the
dreams of another; we are
eager to yield. It is a
mutual pleasure to the holder
of the slipper and to the
foot held. It is a singular
moment — tender, improbable,
and as yet unclouded by the
problems that hobble the pair
when they discover that
the matching slipper
isn’t anywhere, nor does
the bare foot even share
the shape of the other.
When they compare,
the slippered foot makes
the other odder: it looks
like a hoof. So many miracles
don’t start back far enough.
Turtle
Who would be a turtle who could help it?
A barely mobile hard roll, a four-oared helmet,
she can ill afford the chances she must take
in rowing toward the grasses that she eats.
Her track is graceless, like dragging
a packing-case places, and almost any slope
defeats her modest hopes. Even being practical,
she's often stuck up to the axle on her way
to something edible. With everything optimal,
she skirts the ditch which would convert
her shell into a serving dish. She lives
below luck-level, never imagining some lottery
will change her load of pottery to wings.
Her only levity is patience,
the sport of truly chastened things.
Doubt
A chick has just so much time
to chip its way out, just so much
egg energy to apply to the weakest spot
or whatever spot it started at.
It can’t afford doubt. Who can?
Doubt uses albumen
at twice the rate of work.
One backward look by any of us
can cost what it cost Orpheus.
Neither may you answer
the stranger’s knock;
you know it is the Person from Porlock
who eats dreams for dinner,
his napkin stained the most delicate colors.
December 2, 2011
I bought this book solely based on the first poem, "Odd Blocks," because it had a lot of depth to it, a ton of metaphor and distinction and self-awareness that makes you think about all those "monuments to randomness." Beautiful, thoughtful, poignant; couldn't ask for a better poem. I was surprised! Why had I never heard of this Kay Ryan before? Indeed, after buying it I was going to write a review which began, "It's rare that you feel you got your entire money's worth from a book just on the first page."
Unfortunately that turned out to be a all too true. Little did I know that the rest of Kay Ryan's poems did not follow in the footsteps of this one. Most often they are subtle observations, but not simple in a good way, it's the simplicity on *this* side of complexity if you catch my drift; simplicity without meaning, simplicity without understanding, and a rhyme here and there almost as if it were the purpose. I initially spent a great deal of time looking, searching, digging; trying to find anything under the surface of each poem. Eventually I gave up. Oh yes, that's a tree. And now you're writing about your pen, and just your pen, oh and how your pen writes, and how one once compared it to a sword (oh, never read that before). Apologies for being cynical, but I really tried, and couldn't find, any value in most of these poems. They just left me with sort of a "huh" feeling, and eventually as though I had wasted my time. There are a lot of great poets out there elucidating ideas you never knew existed in ways you never thought possible, and they are worth your time; Kay Ryan appears to be a simple poet shedding light on what is already lit in tried and true ways. What's the point?
Except for in that first one. And you can read it right on Amazon or Google Books. "Odd Blocks" is the best, and only good poem in this entire collection. Save your money and just read that one. Almost makes me wonder if she stumbled on that metaphor by mistake. If she were trying surely she would have succeeded a good three or four more times, but that's not the case in this collection. Very unfortunate.
Unfortunately that turned out to be a all too true. Little did I know that the rest of Kay Ryan's poems did not follow in the footsteps of this one. Most often they are subtle observations, but not simple in a good way, it's the simplicity on *this* side of complexity if you catch my drift; simplicity without meaning, simplicity without understanding, and a rhyme here and there almost as if it were the purpose. I initially spent a great deal of time looking, searching, digging; trying to find anything under the surface of each poem. Eventually I gave up. Oh yes, that's a tree. And now you're writing about your pen, and just your pen, oh and how your pen writes, and how one once compared it to a sword (oh, never read that before). Apologies for being cynical, but I really tried, and couldn't find, any value in most of these poems. They just left me with sort of a "huh" feeling, and eventually as though I had wasted my time. There are a lot of great poets out there elucidating ideas you never knew existed in ways you never thought possible, and they are worth your time; Kay Ryan appears to be a simple poet shedding light on what is already lit in tried and true ways. What's the point?
Except for in that first one. And you can read it right on Amazon or Google Books. "Odd Blocks" is the best, and only good poem in this entire collection. Save your money and just read that one. Almost makes me wonder if she stumbled on that metaphor by mistake. If she were trying surely she would have succeeded a good three or four more times, but that's not the case in this collection. Very unfortunate.
September 15, 2021
I'm not a fan of "new and selected" collections because my completist, librarian heart rebels against the idea, but this is Kay Ryan and so I must scream. Five stars.
I love Ryan's choppy, narrow little poems and the way she fills them with sly rhymes often lines apart. The near or internal rhymes make me swoon. Her assonance kills me. I even appreciate when she frustrates my expectations and a spot that feels like it should have a rhyme doesn't. Damn you, Ryan.
The content is also top notch. Sometimes the poems take a reading or two, but the message is always there, embedded in her twisty metaphors and breathless accounting. I read most of these two or three times each, getting a fuller sense of their subject each time.
Of the new poems in here I especially enjoyed Cloud, Pentimenti, Galapágo, and Easter Island. Of the previously published poems, my absolute favorite of hers is in here—A Hundred Bolts of Satin—and I say that as a person constitutionally incapable of picking favorites. It's just that good.
I love Ryan's choppy, narrow little poems and the way she fills them with sly rhymes often lines apart. The near or internal rhymes make me swoon. Her assonance kills me. I even appreciate when she frustrates my expectations and a spot that feels like it should have a rhyme doesn't. Damn you, Ryan.
The content is also top notch. Sometimes the poems take a reading or two, but the message is always there, embedded in her twisty metaphors and breathless accounting. I read most of these two or three times each, getting a fuller sense of their subject each time.
Of the new poems in here I especially enjoyed Cloud, Pentimenti, Galapágo, and Easter Island. Of the previously published poems, my absolute favorite of hers is in here—A Hundred Bolts of Satin—and I say that as a person constitutionally incapable of picking favorites. It's just that good.
December 22, 2010
Glaciers, ribbons, thieves. These are the reoccurring images from Ryan's poetry that stuck with me after reading this "best of" collection.
For my taste, Ryan's poems are too philosophical in nature. Most lack driving images. It's like she's musing about life, breaking the lines after every other words and tossing in slant rhymes like Dickinson and normal rhymes like Frost. Ryan's poems are like little bitty nuggets. As soon as they start, they are over. Few of her poems have a turn.
Too many times she relies on questions--e.g. "Don't you wonder / how people think / the banks of space / and time don't matter?" and "Nobody knows how this works, / and how can it?"
Finally, I felt like she never developed as a a poet in this collection. The poems she published in 2010 could have easily appeared in his 1994 collection, and vise versa.
Despite all this, I still found a few poems I liked:
Crib
The Pharaohs
Spiderweb
Glass Slippers
Drops in the Bucket
The Well or the Cup
Lighthouse Keeping
For my taste, Ryan's poems are too philosophical in nature. Most lack driving images. It's like she's musing about life, breaking the lines after every other words and tossing in slant rhymes like Dickinson and normal rhymes like Frost. Ryan's poems are like little bitty nuggets. As soon as they start, they are over. Few of her poems have a turn.
Too many times she relies on questions--e.g. "Don't you wonder / how people think / the banks of space / and time don't matter?" and "Nobody knows how this works, / and how can it?"
Finally, I felt like she never developed as a a poet in this collection. The poems she published in 2010 could have easily appeared in his 1994 collection, and vise versa.
Despite all this, I still found a few poems I liked:
Crib
The Pharaohs
Spiderweb
Glass Slippers
Drops in the Bucket
The Well or the Cup
Lighthouse Keeping
July 27, 2011
Ryan's immaculately measured voice occasionally dips into a dry wryness but always re-emerges to retain a deft control over her deceptively simple word-play. These poems about art, the natural world and scientific phenomena seem, at first glance, to be casually observational. A second, third or fourth look at each reveals much more.This collection, augmenting selections from previous works with new poems, is not only filled with superb work that stands alone, but many poems are arranged so that the work is juxtaposed with another poem that serves as a mirror, foil or analogue. Seeing each work in the light of others from her ouevre is enlightening and energizing.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 192 reviews