Among the Best
Appreciating Kay Ryan
Have you read any poems by Kay Ryan? She was appointed U.S. Poet Laureate in 2008, and held the position for two terms. And she is the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for her book The Best of It: New and Selected Poems (2010). I have long admired her language, depth, and wit. You can find more details about her life, and many examples of her work at the Poetry Foundation.
One of my favorite poems by Ms. Ryan is Crustacean Island, from her 1996 volume of verse, Elephant Rocks.
Crustacean Island
by Kay Ryan
There could be an island paradise
where crustaceans prevail.
Click, click, go the lobsters
with their china mitts and
articulated tails.
It would not be sad like whales
with their immense and patient sieving
and the sobering modesty
of their general way of living.
It would be an island blessed
with only cold-blooded residents
and no human angle.
It would echo with a thousand castanets
and no flamencos.Please let me take a moment to say thank you to each new subscriber to Every Other Sunday, and to those who have stuck around for some time. EOS is also more than an emailed newsletter. It’s a web page, a destination. Indeed, there are many regular readers who are not subscribers who come to read Every Other Sunday online. Together you are what keeps me on schedule, and you are the reason why Every Other Sunday has now been host to thirty-five of my original poems, eleven of them this year.
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