Kay Ryan born in San Jose ,California raised in San Joaquim Valley and the Mojave Desert attending Antelope Valley College, bachelor's and master's degrees in English from University of California , Los Angeles. lived in Fairfax California, Kkentfield.Carol Adair, who was Ryan published her sixth collection of poetry, The Niagara River, in 2005. Her first collection, Dragon Acts to Dragon Ends, published in 1983 second collection, Strangely Marked Metal (1985), her work went nearly unrecognized until the mid 1990s, when some of her poems were anthologized and the first reviews in national journals were published. receipt theRuth Lilly Poetry Prize in 2004.
In July, 2008, the U.S. Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress for a one year term commencing in Autumn 2008.
A CAT/A FUTURE
A cat can draw
the blind
behind her eyes
whenever she
decides.Nothing
alters in the stare
itself but she's
not there. Likewise
a future can occlude:
still sitting there,
doing nothing rude.
THE NIAGARA RIVER
As though
the river were
a floor, we position
our table and chairs
upon it, eat, and
have conversation.
As it moves along,
we notice — as
calmly as though
dining room paintings
were being replaced —
the changing scenes
along the shore. We
do know, we do
know this is the
Niagara River, but
it is hard to remember
what that means.
Mirage Oases
First among places
susceptible to trespass
are mirage oases
whose graduated pools
and shaded grasses, palms
and speckled fishes give
before the lightest pressure
and are wrecked.
For they live
only in the kingdom
of suspended wishes,
thrive only at our pleasure
checked.
tarot
"I’m not an expert in the deck at all. My interest lies somewhere near a sense that words are like tarot cards, and that a poem manipulates unpredictable depths with its words. . . . I like the tarot because it works like poetry and because you don’t really have to ‘believe in’ anything. It’s there to be used. The symbols are remarkably durable and beautiful; they float out to encompass all kinds of meanings.” —Kay Ryan,“
