Kay Ryan Quotes

• The day misspent, the love misplaced, has inside it the seed of redemption. Nothing is exempt from resurrection.

  Kay Ryan

  Redemption, Resurrection, Misplaced

  Kay Ryan (2007). “Say Uncle: Poems”, p.20, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• As for reality, I don't even have any interest in that word.

  Kay Ryan

  Reality, Interest

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• 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

  Encouragement, Home, College

  "It Takes a Community College" by Jenna Krajeski, www.newyorker.com. October 27, 2009.

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• It isn't ever delicate to live.

  Kay Ryan

  Delicate

  Kay Ryan (2010). “The Best of It: New and Selected Poems”, p.26, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• Small presses take chances. Chances are at the heart of all the literature we later know as great.

  Kay Ryan

  Heart, Literature, Chance

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• Failure: the renewable resource.

  Kay Ryan

  Renewable Resources, Resources

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• A lot of the job that one has to do as a writer is to protect the thing that doesn't match the world.

  Kay Ryan

  Jobs, World, Protect

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• Who would have guessed it possible that waiting is sustainable. A place with its own harvest.

  Kay Ryan

  Waiting, Harvest

  Kay Ryan (2000). “Say Uncle: Poems”

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• What keeps me writing is that I can only know through writing. My major sense organ is apparently a pencil.

  Kay Ryan

  Writing, Organs, Knows

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• I don't think any poetry is written that isn't primarily written to the self, in a way... I'm always talking to myself. But I seem to want somebody else to listen to it. I need, I do want an audience. So it's a strange thing. It's a very private conversation that then, you make public, kind of, like, the starfish flipping its stomach out.

  Kay Ryan

  Thinking, Self, Talking

  "ArtWorks" with Jo Reed, www.arts.gov.

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• Action creates/a taste/for itself.

  Kay Ryan

  Taste, Action

  Kay Ryan (2010). “The Best of It: New and Selected Poems”, p.164, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• I have tried to live very quietly, so I could be happy.

  Kay Ryan

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• A too closely watched flower/blossoms the wrong color./Excess attention to the jonquil/turns it gentian. Flowers/need it tranquil to get/their hues right. Some/only open at midnight.

  Kay Ryan

  Flower, Color, Midnight

  Kay Ryan (2007). “Say Uncle: Poems”, p.57, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• Gaps don't/just happen./There is a/generative element/inside them,/a welling motion/ as when cold/waters shoulder/up through/warmer oceans./And where gaps/choose to widen,/coordinates warp,/even in places/constant since/the oldest maps.

  Kay Ryan

  Ocean, Water, Elements

  Kay Ryan (2010). “The Best of It: New and Selected Poems”, p.171, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• If we have not struggled/as hard as we can/at our strongest/how will we sense/the shape of our losses/or know what sustains/us longest or name/what change costs us,/saying how strange/it is that one sector/of the self can step in/for another in trouble,/how loss activates/a latent double, how/we can feed/as upon nectar/upon need?

  Kay Ryan

  Loss, Self, Names

  Kay Ryan (2007). “Say Uncle: Poems”, p.54, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• It’s hard not to jump out instead of waiting to be found. It’s hard to be alone so long and then hear someone come around. It’s like some form of skin’s developed in the air that, rather than have torn, you tear. "Hide and Seek

  Kay Ryan

  Air, Long, Waiting

  Kay Ryan (2010). “The Best of It: New and Selected Poems”, p.250, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• It seems like many people think that if you drive yourself crazy, then you can write. I’m absolutely not interested in that. It made sense to me to be as whole and well as I could be, and as happy. I wanted to see what a fortunate life would produce. What writing would come out of a mind that didn’t try to torment itself? What did I have to know? What did I have to do rather than what can I torment and bend myself into doing? What was the fruit on that tree?

  Kay Ryan

  Crazy, Writing, Thinking

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• It's important to have your private enjoyments because sometimes that's all we have.

  Kay Ryan

  Important, Sometimes, Enjoyment

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• The only real access that I have to my mind is when I'm writing.

  Kay Ryan

  Real, Writing, Mind

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• CROWN Too much rain loosens trees. In the hills giant oaks fall upon their knees. You can touch parts you have no right to— places only birds should fly to.

  Kay Ryan

  Rain, Fall, Bird

  Kay Ryan (2007). “Say Uncle: Poems”, p.48, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• Forgetting takes space./Forgotten matters displace/as much anything else as/anything else. We must/skirt unlabeled crates/as thought it made sense/and take them when we go/to other states.

  Kay Ryan

  Space, Matter, Skirts

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• BAIT GOAT There is a distance where magnets pull, we feel, having held them back. Likewise there is a distance where words attract. Set one out like a bait goat and wait and seven others will approach. But watch out: roving packs can pull your word away. You find your stake yanked and some rough bunch to thank.

  Kay Ryan

  Distance, Waiting, Bait

  Kay Ryan (2010). “The Best of It: New and Selected Poems”, p.5, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• The satisfactions/of agreement are/immediate as sugar--/a melting of the/granular, a syrup/that lingers, shared/not singular./Many prefer it.

  Kay Ryan

  Agreement, Syrup, Melting

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• Tenderness and Rot Tenderness and rot share a border. And rot is an aggressive neighbor whose iridescence keeps creeping over. No lessons can be drawn from this however. One is not two countries. One is not meat corrupting. It is important to stay sweet and loving.

  Kay Ryan

  Country, Sweet, Two

  Kay Ryan (2007). “The Niagara River: Poems”, p.24, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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