The Newest U.S. Poet Laureate: Kay Ryan

I couldn’t help but smile when I saw the news that Kay Ryan has been chosen as the next Poet Laureate of the U.S. — and if you read a few of her poems (here are six in a New York Times Web Extra), you’ll find yourself smiling, too.

from The New York Times:
“Kay Ryan, Outsider With Sly Style, Named Poet Laureate”
by Patricia Cohen
“When Kay Ryan was a student at the University of California, Los Angeles, the poetry club rejected her application; she was perhaps too much of a loner, she recalls. Now Ms. Ryan is being inducted into one of the most elite poetry clubs around. She is to be named the country’s poet laureate.... Known for her sly, compact poems that revel in wordplay and internal rhymes, Ms. Ryan has won a carriage full of poetry prizes for her funny and philosophical work.”

from The San Francisco Chronicle:
“Poet Laureate of the United States: Kay Ryan
Poems that turn ordinary things grand
Fairfax poet's original voice draws notice and highest honors”
by Heidi Benson
“‘I usually do a lot of idle woolgathering, punctuated with bicycle riding and a certain amount of cooking,’ she said, holding the phone to her ear while buttering toast. ‘This will flip daily life upside down.’... Wit and understatement - applied to the quiddities of daily living - are key to Ryan’s poetry...”

Despite all her accolades and awards, Ryan is most definitely a loner, an outsider in the world of po-biz and writing workshops — witness her 2005 essay for Poetry magazine, “I Go to AWP.” But she’s also most definitely engaged in the public interactions of language, having taught remedial writing to community college students for 30 years. She’s a wonderful, witty poet whose poems are like pebbles dropped into a still pond, rippling out far beyond their small circumferences.

Related resources:
Poets Laureate, a brief history
Poets Laureate of the U.S.A., a Net-annotated list

Our profiles of recent U.S. Poet Laureates
Kay Ryan (2008-2009)
Charles Simic (2007-2008)
Donald Hall (2006-2007)
Ted Kooser (2004-2006)
Louise Glück (2003-2004)
Stanley Kunitz (2000-2001)
Robert Pinsky (1997-2000)