Background
Ryan, Kay Pedersen was born on September 21, 1945 in San Jose, California, United States. Daughter of Kay Richard and Bessie Margaret (Barrett) Pedersen.
( Elephant Rocks, Kay Ryan’s third book of verse, shows a...)
Elephant Rocks, Kay Ryan’s third book of verse, shows a virtuoso practitioner at the top of her form. Engaging and secretive, provocative and profound, Ryan’s poems have generated growing excitement with their appearances in The New Yorker and other leading periodicals. Sometimes gaudily ornamental, sometimes Shaker-plain, here is verse that is compact on the page and expansive in the mind.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0802135250/?tag=2022091-20
(Poetry. Kay Ryan's second book, nominated for the Lenore ...)
Poetry. Kay Ryan's second book, nominated for the Lenore Marshall Prize in 1995. "An extraordinary book, one that penetrates to the bone. I cannot recommend it highly enough"--Jane Hirshfield.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0914278649/?tag=2022091-20
(Poetry. Available again, this is the second printing of B...)
Poetry. Available again, this is the second printing of Bay Area poet, Kay Ryan's 1985 debut. "Kay Ryan makes it all fresh again with her highly original vision, her elegant, quirky craft.... These poems look easy, but the deeper one delves, the more they astonish and nourish"--May Sarton.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0914278460/?tag=2022091-20
( Filled with wry logic and a magical, unpredictable musi...)
Filled with wry logic and a magical, unpredictable musicality, Kay Ryan's poems continue to generate excitement with their frequent appearances in The New Yorker and other leading periodicals. Say Uncle, Ryan's fifth collection, is filled with the same hidden connections, the same slyness and almost gleeful detachment that has delighted readers of her earlier books. Compact, searching, and oddly beautiful, these poems, in the words of Dana Gioia, "take the shape of an idea clarifying itself." "A poetry collection that marries wit and wisdom more brilliantly than any I know.... Poetry as statement and aphorism is rarely heartbreaking, but reading these poems I find myself continually ambushed by a fundamental sorrow, one that hides behind a surface that interweaves sound and sense in immaculately interesting ways." -- Jane Hirshfield, Common Boundary; "The first thing you notice about her poems is an elbow-to-the-ribs playfulness." -- Patricia Holt, San Francisco Chronicle.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0802137172/?tag=2022091-20
( In the citation accompanying Kay's recent award of the ...)
In the citation accompanying Kay's recent award of the prestigious Ruth Lilly Prize, Christine Wiman wrote: "Kay Ryan can take any subject and make it her own. Her poems-which combine extreme concision and formal expertise with broad subjects and deep feeling-could never be mistaken for anyone else's. Her work has the kind of singularity and sustained integrity that are very, very rare…. It's always a dicey business predicting the literary future…but for this reader, these poems feel as if there were built to last, and…they have the passion, precision and sheer weirdness to do so." Salon compared the poems in Ryan's last collection to "Fabergé eggs, tiny, ingenious devices that inevitably conceal some hidden wonder." The exquisite poems in The Niagara River provide similarly hidden gems. Bafflingly effective, they seem too brief and blithe to pack so much wallop. Intense and relaxed at once, both buoyant and rueful, their singular music appeals to many people. Her poems, products of an immaculately off-kilter mind, have been featured everywhere from the Sunday funnies to New York subways to plaques at the zoo to the pages of The New Yorker.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0802142222/?tag=2022091-20
Ryan, Kay Pedersen was born on September 21, 1945 in San Jose, California, United States. Daughter of Kay Richard and Bessie Margaret (Barrett) Pedersen.
Bachelor, University of California at Los Angeles, 1967. Master of Arts, University of California at Los Angeles, 1968.
Chancellor Academy American Poets, since 2006.
( Filled with wry logic and a magical, unpredictable musi...)
( In the citation accompanying Kay's recent award of the ...)
( Elephant Rocks, Kay Ryan’s third book of verse, shows a...)
(Poetry. Kay Ryan's second book, nominated for the Lenore ...)
(Poetry. Available again, this is the second printing of B...)
(2nd)
Life partner Carol Adair.