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20 july - kay ryan named u.s. poet laureate. 

listen to interview with andrea seabrook

on npr's   'all things considered'   

Poet Kay Ryan: A profile

By Elizabeth Lund

Kay Ryan may be the only American poet who describes her writing process as "a self-imposed emergency," the artistic equivalent of finding a loved one pinned under a 3,000-pound car. These "emergencies," she says, allow her to tap into abilities she wouldn't normally have, much like a father who single-handedly lifts a vehicle off his child. In Ms. Ryan's case, however, what has survived because of her efforts over the past three decades is a singular voice and vision. Her poems - with their compact size and technical precision, their wit and sharp intelligence - have been praised by critics for their ability to do and say things that none of her contemporaries can match.

Prize committees have also taken notice. This past spring she won a prestigious Guggenheim fellowshipand the $100,000 Ruth Lilly Prize, which acknowledges an extraordinary body of work. "This feels like the most remarkable validation of what I've been doing for so many years," she says in a phone interview. The triumph is all the sweeter given that Ryan, now approaching retirement, recalls beingdenied admission to the poetry club at UCLA when she was a student there because she was considered too much of an outsider.

Today, the "outsider" is smiling broadly. Yet what may resonate most with other poets is the courage she has shown, year after year, to embrace those "emergencies" and follow them wherever they've led, even when it seemed that no one but her life partner, Carol, seemed to care.

Ryan clearly remembers one of her first "self-imposed emergencies." She and a friend had left California

on a 4,000-mile cross-country bicycle trip, which would give her time to think about whether to devote herself to poetry as a vocation. She had been writing for more than 10 years, ever since her father's death when she was 19. Yet in the preceding few months, as she recalls, "I really found that poetry was taking over my mind." One night, as she read a book of prose, "everything seemed to rhyme."

As the friends pedaled through Colorado, the repetitive, rhythmic exercise gave Ryan a sense of oneness with her surroundings, as if "I could pass through the pine trees and they through me." She suddenly felt as if she "knew everything," she says. "I wasn't bound by the ordinary structures of ego."

In that moment of heightened awareness, Ryan, who is not religious, asked the universe whether she should be a writer.

The answer she got was clear and surprising: "Do you like it?"

Yes, she realized, she liked writing better than anything else.

Since then, Ryan has fashioned a life conducive to poetry, one in which the essential elements of that bike trip - repetition, expansiveness, and large intellectual leaps - shape both her daily routine and her voice as a writer.

Practically speaking, that means a lifestyle with few obligations. Thus, she has taught the same subject - remedial English - at  college of Marin in Kentfield, Calif.  for the past 33 years. She limits her classes to Tuesday and Thursday afternoons.

"I've tried to live very quietly, so I could be happy," she says, explaining that the simpler her routine, the more complex her thinking can be. Her poems function much the same way, with deep currents underlying a simple-looking surface, as in "Hope" from the collection "Elephant Rocks":

Hope

What's the use
of something
as unstable
and diffuse as hope -
the almost-twin
of making-do,
the isotope
of going on:
what isn't in
the envelope
just before
it isn't:
the always tabled
righting of the present.

Readers might notice a touch of irony in this poem, given that Ryan has obviously chosen hope over despair throughout her career. She didn't stop writing even when her first two books - one of which was privately printed by friends - drew no critical attention. Instead, she maintained her work routine, which she wryly describes as breakfast, reading the paper, and then "a lying session," since she writes in bed, with an old black cat holding down the covers. On her nightstand sit several yellow pads of paper and a stack of "difficult books," which she dips into before starting to work, to "help get my mind up to speed." (Recently she has been reading "Anathemas and Admirations," by E.M. Cioran; Walter Benjamin's "Illuminations"; and "The Rings of Saturn," by W. G. Sebald.)

Week after week, month after month, she continued with her distinctive approach, writing short poems even when long narratives became the fashion. She also stuck with her signature style, which is complex, multi-layered, and sometimes sly, rather than trying to write more conventional lyrics.

Her poems, she says, don't begin with a simple image or sound, but instead start "the way an oyster does, with an aggravation." An old saw may nudge her repeatedly, such as "It's always darkest before the dawn" or "Why did the chicken cross the road?"

"I think, 'What about those chickens?' " she says, "and I start an investigation of what that means. Poets rehabilitate clichés."

Some do, perhaps, but many wouldn't dare to enter such familiar territory. Ryan, however, adds depth and so many surprises that the silliest clichés become fertile ground. "The other shoe," from 2003, is a classic example:

The other shoe

Oh if it were
only the other
shoe hanging
in space before
joining its mate.
If the undropped
didn't congregate
with the undropped.
But nothing can
stop the mid-air
collusion of the
unpaired above us
acquiring density
and weight. We
feel it accumulate.

What she feels building, during work sessions, are various elements - rhyme, metaphor, a narrative thread, and matter transmuting into new shapes - that create a certain thrust in her mind. Once she begins writing, she continues until a complete poem has emerged. She can't stop, she says, because so much is happening at once. She may go back and revise later - some poems have taken 18 or 19 drafts - but by then the poem will seem new to her. Her memory, as her partner says, is very short-term, "read-only."

Some readers and critics have compared her to the metaphysical poets - her work does seem to have a certain omniscience - but Ryan doesn't align herself with any historical or modern group of writers. Likewise, she does not claim a specific set of religious beliefs. She was raised in the "Church of  Proximity," she says, meaning her family attended whichever church was closest to where they were living in the small towns of the San Joaquin Valley and the Mojave Desert

What she values most about her patchwork religious education is the collection of stories she learned, which allow her, in some cases, to strike a deep, universal nerve. At other times, the tales establish common ground, which she then transforms with sly humor.

The Fourth Wise Man

The fourth wise man
disliked travel. If
you walk, there's the
gravel. If you ride,
there's the camel's attitude.
He far preferred
to be inside in solitude
to contemplate the star
that had been getting
so much larger
and more prolate lately -
stretching vertically
(like the souls of martyrs)
toward the poles
(or like the yawns of babies).

"The Fourth," like many of Ryan's poems, does have a spiritual dimension, but the poet is quick to point out that she doesn't view the universe as conscious. She's not writing about the physical world as we experience it, but a world that exists only in her mind. What she does hope to convey is a sense of refreshment. "Poems should leave you feeling freer and not more burdened," she says. "I like to think of all good poetry as providing more oxygen into the atmosphere; it just makes it easier to breathe."

One way of achieving that goal is to avoid the first-person perspective. Ryan rarely uses "I," because she finds it too intrusive. She wants readers to hear their own voices when they read, that "perfect voice in the mind." The best writers, she says, are people such as Robert Frost and Philip Larkin, who give readers their highest selves.

Ryan believes her highest self is her intellect, which is why she writes about intriguing propositions and philosophical questions, rather than her personal life. One recent poem arose from an image she had of people walking around carrying invisible ladders. Exploring such intriguing concepts gives her "kind of a peculiar way of talking about emotions," she says. "It gives my poems a coolness. I can touch things that are very hot because I've given them some distance."

In addition to "coolness," she demands that her work have a lightness about it, yet she also wants the poems to "insist," to impose her will on readers. Ryan quickly acknowledges the seeming contradiction here: "Lightness can't be pushy, it can't be heavy, so how can it insist? Yet that is the only thing I want."

The fusion of contradictions is one trait that distinguishes her work from other poets'. She manages to convey intimacy and depth, distance and familiarity, at the same time.

For Ryan, the reward of her approach is what she calls "an acceleration of the mind," much like what she experienced on the bike in Colorado

. She doesn't wait for the feeling of mental freedom to find her, though. She actively courts it by creating one of her 'emergencies' and forcing herself to do the mental equivalent of lifting a car. Using humor is one way to do this.

"I always counted on [humor] as a child," she explains, recalling a father who was not just a dreamer but could "fail at anything," a man who sold Christmas trees, owned a chromium mine, and died while reading a get-rich-quick book.

Ryan does not share her father's penchant for idle dreaming, but the hard lessons learned during those early years days do seem to color her work, giving it a gravity, a touch of sadness, that makes the wit even more poignant.

To this day, she feels the need to make people laugh, whether she's in the grocery store or reading in front of a standing-room-only crowd. "I need to make them laugh to know they're there," she says. Then, on a more serious note, she adds, "I need [humor] to connect with people."

And connect she has, with readers and critics. Since the publication of her first barely-noticed book in 1983, Ryan has been the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Ingram Merrill Foundation. She has won the Maurice English Poetry Award and two Pushcart Prizes, and she has published in some of the finest periodicals, including The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and Poetry, where her work appears regularly.

Not bad for a woman who was once considered too independent to be accepted by her college's literary elites. Now, however, with her two recent prizes, Ryan serves as an example for other unconventional writers. "If there is a [literary] game of sorts, you can win by staying home and doing the writing," she says. "Good work can make its way in this culture."

 Ryan named U.S. poet laureate/
Sun. Jul 20 - 4:31 AM

NEW YORK — Kay Ryan, award-winning poet, mountain bike rider and self-described "modern hermit," will soon be going to Washington.

The Library of Congress announced Thursday that the lifelong Californian, whose compressed, metaphysical poetry has been compared to Emily Dickinson’s, will succeed Charles Simic as the 16th U.S. poet laureate, starting in the fall.

The appointment lasts for one year and comes with a $35,000 salary, plus $5,000 for travel and a "splendid office," according to Librarian of Congress James H. Billington.

Ryan, 62, lives in Fairfax, Calif., with her longtime partner, Carol Adair.

The daughter of an oil well digger, Ryan was born in San Jose, Calif., in 1945. She is a graduate of the University of California at Los Angeles. 

Her books include Elephant Rocks, Say Uncle and, most recently, The Niagara River.

 There are days I drop words of comfort on myself like falling rain & remember it is enough to be taken care of by myself. www.storypeople.com

 **********************************************************************

don't make someone a priority. . . 

when they make you an option.

if they're dumb enough to leave, be smart enough to let them. b ivy

register to vote! 

planet earth and her people matter . . all of them. 

everything but the stamp:  http://www.rockthevote.org

"be the change you want to see in the world" gandhi

no excuse not to register

no excuse not to vote 

 www.rockthevote.com  can literally complete your voter registration form.  all you have to do is answer a few questions based on the state in which you live (hoping the answer is not oblivion) and a few other facts (address, confirm you're 18 or older, etc.).

also note that there are fields (or fill in boxes) that do NOT require answers such as:

• phone number
• race or ethnicity
• political party affiliation
• most important issue of this election (unfortunately, there is not an "all of the above" choice for this one)

the completed form, based on your answers, will then appear on your screen. 

Next Steps:

• print the completed voter's registration form

• SIGN the voter's registration form

• put it in an envelope or fold in thirds and seal it

• put a stamp on it

• address it (address will be on your form)

• mail it.

if you have other questions regarding voting in your state, you can contact the secretary of state's office for your state.  you can find the list here - as well as the phone number. http://www.registrationbyworkingassets.com/site/sos/

while you've got them on the line, your SOS office can also tell you where to vote if you don't know your precinct location.

for information regarding any of the following, click on the caption 

• voting in Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Tagalog and Vietnamese
• registering to vote if you live overseas
• youth voter registration / overseas (18-29)
•  voter registration for military personnel
•  everything you wanted to know about voting in your state but were afraid to ask

 and you always have the option of contacting either obama or mcCain's headquarters.  no one is going to have a more vested interest than they in getting you out to vote so you're 99% certain of getting the right answer and any help you may need. 

as an FYI, obama's site will take you to www.rockthevote.com to register. 

mccain's will take you to a page of their own design to register to vote.  here

more to come. if any of the above links don't work or you want add'l info in the meantime, please email ryan@howlstudios.com

you can do more than you think: 

if we don't stop and allow things to move our hearts, how will our minds ever follow?  

a brave heart is a powerful weapon.

click on collage

clockwise, from upper left:  robert berry; lisa, jeannie and mindy kauffman; stumpy joe; craig lesser; bill & callie; wendy

click click here 

Julia Fikse wants to save the ta-tas, including yours! Exposed to the effects of breast cancer at an early age when her grandmother lost both breasts to the disease, Fikse learned the value of accepting and loving oneself no matter your appearance.

After a second run-in with breast cancer in 2004 when another family member had a mastectomy and questioned her femininity, Fikse realized the importance of promoting self beauty and confidence in the hearts of women battling breast cancer.

guest book

22 july -

July 22/ Lisa

I don’t think there’s anything more beautiful than watching the moon rise over the coulee wall late at night, when the air is cool and everyone is in bed, and listening to the coyotes howl and yap among themselves.  I followed their voices in the night as they moved down from the rock falls along the bottom of the cliffs and came into town.  After hearing one last yip not far from my house…silence.  Just moths fluttering by, mosquitoes trilling around my head, crickets, and things rustling in the bushes. 

There’s a cat that joins me on the deck some nights.  He appears silently out of the darkness and starts purring before I even scratch his cheek.  I don’t know who he belongs to, but he spends many nights on the railing of my deck.  It’s the perfect spot for a cat to perch.  The deck is on the 2^nd story, high off the ground, and inside a fenced yard.  Even on nights the coyotes stalk my alley, they’ll never get this cat.  And my dogs, who sleep in the house at night, couldn’t care less about the cat.  They let me sit on the deck with my night time cat for as long as I want. 

20 july - i had to check in tonight as i had ready access to computer and internet AND as i learned today that kay ryan has been named the 16th poet laureate (u.s.).  such great news.

lisa's still going to be keeping up the site until i get back to the u.s.s.a. but i really wanted to take a minute to post the good news about ryan.  srr

July 18/ lisa

Yesterday, I noticed some high clouds in the sky.  Nothing unusual about that.  The only reason I even noticed was because I was watching a flock of vultures circle over my neighborhood.  I love watching them because some fly clockwise, some fly counterclockwise, and they never run into each other.  And I thought to myself hmmm that’s cool.  Look at those funny, wispy clouds.  It almost looks like smoke. 

This morning, I opened up the newspaper and saw an article about the clouds over the Pacific Northwest yesterday.  They weren’t regular clouds, they were clouds of sulfur dioxide from a volcanic eruption in the Aleutian Islands.  Volcano Okmok erupted on July 12^th and the sulfur dioxide was caught up in the Jet Stream and ended up over me yesterday.  How cool is that?  Well, not so cool if you were next to the volcano when it erupted. 

I was living in Western Washington when Mt. St. Helens erupted in 1980.  We were too far north to get more than a dusting of ash, but we heard the explosions as it erupted.  It was a culmination of months of small earthquakes and hysterical reporters giving us updates and worst case scenarios on the mountain.  But we had no idea what was really going to happen. People died, there were mudslides and flooding, forests and ecosystems were destroyed, and the ash cloud from the eruption circled the Earth.

It just goes to show, no matter where you live, things happening hundreds or thousands miles away can touch your life; even in a tiny way.

July 13/Lisa

For the past 2 days, I've been looking for a rental house in a town named after the pig in Charlotte's Web.  It's not a big town, not even a medium sized town...it's small.  Really small.  Like I could ride my bike from one end to the other and all around it in less time than it takes to fry up a nice steak on the grill.  The only building over one story is the grain elevator.  And it's been hot.  Almost hot enough to start my hair on fire.  It might be a dry heat, but with the nice, dry wind whistling through the sage brush, I feel like I'm turning into jerky.  I'm afraid that if I should trip and fall and knock myself out while cleaning the kitchen, my dogs would be tempted to eat my feet.  I'm sure they're dry enough to qualify as jerky right now! 

I'm just not much of a summer person.  I keep looking for jobs in Texas (Yes, I really am!) to be closer to family and friends...but at least one family member has started a betting pool on how long I'd last.  After all, I'm the one who took the garbage out to the dumpster in the alley behind our house wearing only a tshirt and jeans (and boots!  Don't think I'm at total idiot!) when it was 20 below zero, while living in Montana.  And it was refreshing, thank you very much.  I'd like to think that I'd get used to the heat.  Or at least lose the urge to hibernate in the deep freeze from May to October.  The right job for a decent amount of money can motivate me to do all sorts of things :)

But for now, I'm just looking to move to a town where people are nicer to us.  And I'm trying to sell my house.  Anyone interested in living in Eastern Washington State?! 

 Fishing...his fave activity

July 10/Lisa

Today is my oldest son’s 15^th birthday.  I can barely wrap my mind around the fact that this kid is 15 years old!  It seems like yesterday he was a robust 9 lb. baby in the basinet next to my hospital bed as my husband and I looked at him and wondered what we’d gotten ourselves into. 

What we’ve gotten ourselves into is a kid who’s almost 6ft. tall and still growing, who eats every 2 hours, and has an opinion about everything.  He loves video games, manga, swimming, golfing, and building things out of Zome Tools.  Click *Here*  if you want to see what Zome Tools are…they are only the coolest thing ever designed for building just about anything you can imagine. 

Yesterday, the family and I spent the day in Spokane to celebrate his birthday.  We shopped, we ate bad mall food, and we saw the movie “Hancock”.  Despite some rather scathing reviews, I really liked the movie.  Nothing deep, only one good plot twist, and obviously they plan on make 2 or 3 more Hancock movies.  But good summer fun.  And it doesn’t hurt that I really like Will Smith. 

The only down side to a summer birthday is it’s hard to get his friends together for a party.  Plus, he really doesn’t want much of a party anyway.  It’s “embarrassing”.  So, I’m handing out cupcakes to the neighbor kids and they’re all playing basketball on our driveway right now.  If the wind dies down, we’ll have a fire in the fire pit and swat mosquitoes while I tell embarrassing stories for his friends…

There was the time he decided he wasn’t going to wear a diaper anymore and kept pulling it off and handing it to me - in the grocery store, at the playground, at home, on walks - until I finally figured out that I needed to put his diapers on backwards so he couldn’t pick the tape open.

When he was in first grade, he decided he was going to walk home instead of taking the bus…and just about gave me a heart attack when he didn’t get off the bus at the bus stop just a few blocks from our house.  I later found him walking through the middle of town, just getting ready to walk across the railroad tracks, but after navigating through the ghetto neighborhood full of drunks and crack smokers. 

And then there was the time he and his brother went for a hike on the road behind our house, and he decided that they needed to strike off into the wilderness and hike to the top of the hill overlooking town.  By this time, they carried my cell phone with them when they went for walks or rides, but I certainly never thought I’d be using it to help them navigate their way back home from a hike in the wilderness.  After that little stunt, I seriously thought about having him tagged with a permanent satellite tracking device.

My 3 favorite things about my oldest son:  His imagination, his curiosity, and his kindness.  He has a huge heart, a curious mind, and he loves science fiction as much as I do!