Lesbian poet Kay Ryan was just named the US's next poet laureate.
"I so didn't want to be a poet," Ms. Ryan, 62, said in a phone interview from her home in Fairfax, Calif. "I came from sort of a self-contained people who didn't believe in public exposure, and public investigation of the heart was rather repugnant to me."
But in the end "I couldn't resist," she said. "It was in a strange way taking over my mind. My mind was on its own finding things and rhyming things. I was getting diseased."
Dana Gioia, a poet and the chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, was an early supporter of Ms. Ryan's work, describing her as the "thoughtful, bemused, affectionate, deeply skeptical outsider."
"She would certainly be part of the world if she could manage it," he said. "She has certain reservations. That is what makes her like Dickinson in some ways."
That's great for her! Check out her poetry on Kay Ryan's page at Poets.org.
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4 Comments
Yay for Kay! (See?! I got so in the spirit of things, I rhymed too!)
Bil Browning | July 17, 2008 3:53 PM
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LOL, Bil!
Apparently Alex is in the short and sweet mode today. I like this. Hopefully it becomes a trend! ;^P
Serena Freewomyn | July 17, 2008 5:53 PM
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Wow. I posted
on a poet
and it received
a greater response
than the round-up
posted above.
What I have
learned from
this is
that poetry
like Ryan's
takes more than
just pressing enter
to break up sentences
like spaghetti.
Alex Blaze | July 17, 2008 8:11 PM
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Alex, do you know if she's the first lesbian poet laureate?
Brynn Craffey | July 18, 2008 11:32 AM
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