Ryan, Kay 1945-

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RYAN, Kay 1945-

PERSONAL: Born 1945.

ADDRESSES: Office—60 Taylor Dr., Fairfax, CA, 94930.

CAREER: Poet.

AWARDS, HONORS: Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize finalist, American Academy of Poets, 1995; Union League Civic and Arts Poetry Prize, Poetry magazine, 2000; two-time winner of Pushcart Prize.

WRITINGS:

Dragon Acts to Dragon Ends, Taylor Street Press (Fairfax, CA), 1983.

Strangely Marked Metal: Poems, Copper Beech Press (Providence, RI), 1985.

Flamingo Watching: Poems, Copper Beech Press (Providence, RI), 1994.

Elephant Rocks, Grove Press (New York, NY), 1996.

Say Uncle: Poems, Grove Press (New York, NY), 2000.

Contributor of poetry to various publications, including the New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, New Republic, and Paris Review. Also contributor to The Best American Poetry, 1995.

SIDELIGHTS: American poet Kay Ryan has published five volumes of poetry since 1983, the year her debut effort, Dragon Acts to Dragon Ends, appeared in print. Ryan's first major work was Strangely Marked Metal, published in 1985, and it has been followed by the critically acclaimed collections Flamingo Watching, Elephant Rocks, and Say Uncle.

In addition to earning several literary awards, Ryan has also won the praise of many literary critics, a number of whom have compared her work to the verse of Emily Dickinson. "Kay Ryan is one contemporary poet whose work exemplifies the old humanist notion that poetry can both delight and instruct. Ryan is a poet of ideas, of pragmatic philosophical reflection, and the pleasure of it is we hardly even know we're being taught," wrote critic Andrew Frisardi in Poetry. Ryan's poetry "is cause for celebration," wrote George Bradley, reviewing Flamingo Watching for Yale Review. "Her poetry is vivid and peculiar, flexible and flamboyant, sinuous and exact."

Ryan realized at an early age that she wanted to become a poet. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, she explained that she began to appreciate her gift for language "when I was twelve and able to use language in such a way as to cause a grown-up to spit a mouthful of milk across the dinner table in an uncontrollable expression of amusement." Today, however, she aspires to more than spilled milk. "I would like to have my poems burned into the code of the universe," she said in the same interview.

Critics began taking notice of Ryan's gift for language with the publication of Strangely Marked Metal. In the book's title poem, Ryan asks, "Where were the tablets before Moses?" Her answer: "Perhaps/they are all the strangely marked metals/which we cannot resist reading as fiercely/as we can because they are so beautiful." The subjects of her musings include the ancient Greeks and Egyptians, Marianne Moore, and herself. Calling the book "a delight to read," R. Whitman of Choice described Ryan as an "engaging and engaged poet" with a "subtle and accurate" ear.

Many of the poems in Elephant Rocks are compressed, with brief lines and short stanzas. For example, in the poem "Intention," Ryan writes: "Intention doesn't sweeten./It should be picked young/and eaten. Sometimes only hours/separate the cotyledon/from the wooden plant./Then if you want to eat it,/you can't." A Publishers Weekly reviewer felt that Elephant Rocks contains a "careful observation of the external world of sensation" as well as a "faithful documentation of the inner world of thought." In Booklist, Elizabeth Millard described Ryan as "remarkably dexterous at slanting the poetic light upon common places."

The poems in Say Uncle, Ryan's fifth published book, also have short lines, most of them no more than six syllables long. For example, in the poem "Blunt," Ryan writes, "If we could love/the blunt/and not/the point/we would/almost constantly/have what we want." Other poem titles include "The Fabric of Life," "Agreement," "The Old Cosmologists," and "The Pass." Most critics lauded Say Uncle, including David Yezzi of Poetry. "Kay Ryan's diminutive poems resemble pastilles, lemon drops hard enough to cut your lip on. The sweetness derives from their gently musical, amusing surfaces, the tang from a rueful world view," Yezzi wrote. Peter Davison, reviewing the work for the Atlantic Monthly, observed that it contains "precise, epigrammatic poems" with "hookand-eye rhymes." The Publishers Weekly reviewer concluded that Ryan's verse seeks "compression, consonance, cute rhymes, and moral lessons."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Directory of American Poets and Fiction Writers, Poets & Writers (New York, NY), 1997-98.

PERIODICALS

Antioch Review, fall, 1996, Daniel McGuiness, review of Elephant Rocks, p. 496.

Atlantic Monthly, October, 2000, Peter Davison, review of Say Uncle, p. 136.

Booklist, April 1, 1996, Elizabeth Millard, review of Elephant Rocks, p. 1340.

Choice, December, 1985, R. Whitman, review of Strangely Marked Metal, p. 606.

Entertainment Weekly, June 29, 2001, "Books: The It List," p. 90.

Georgia Review, fall, 2000, Paul Lake, review of Say Uncle, p. 584.

Library Journal, August, 1994, Christine Stenstrom, review of Flamingo Watching, p. 91; February 1, 2001, Ann K. van Buren, review of Say Uncle, p. 100.

New Yorker, December 16, 1996, Benoit van Innis, review of Elephant Rocks, p. 108.

Poetry, May, 1997, Andrew Frisardi, review of Elephant Rocks, p. 101; May, 2001, David Yezzi, review of Say Uncle, p. 103.

Publishers Weekly, March 18, 1996, review of Elephant Rocks, p. 67; July 24, 2000, review of Say Uncle, p. 82.

Yale Review, July, 1995, George Bradley, review of Flamingo Watching, p. 170; April, 2001, Rachel Hadas, review of Say Uncle, p. 170.