I was having trouble sleeping a couple nights ago, so I read some Kay Ryan poems to settle my brain a bit.
This one helped:
Tag: kayryan
I like to read my poems, but I don’t like to hear other people read theirs.
Kay Ryan. Zing!
I simply want to celebrate the fact that right near your home, year in and year out, a community college is quietly — and with very little financial encouragement — saving lives and minds. I can’t think of a more efficient, hopeful or egalitarian machine, with the possible exception of the bicycle.
Kay Ryan (via austinkleon)
Turtle, by Kay Ryan:
Who would be a turtle who could help it?
A barely mobile hard roll, a four-oared helmet,
She can ill afford the chances she must take
In rowing toward the grasses that she eats.
Her track is graceless, like dragging
A packing-case places, and almost any slope
Defeats her modest hopes. Even being practical,
SheÄôs often stuck up to the axle on her way
To something edible. With everything optimal,
She skirts the ditch which would convert
Her shell into a serving dish. She lives
Below luck-level, never imagining some lottery
Will change her load of pottery to wings.
Her only levity is patience,
The sport of truly chastened things.
“How did you become a poet?””Reluctantly.”
If I’ve written this written this properly, it’s like condensed soup… it should be reconstitutable in the mind of the reader and it should come out just about right if you’ve had a chance to read it.
And this:
I mistrust inspiration… I find it necessary to begin before I have any inspiration.
Mark Larson 