Kay Ryan

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…

— Kay Ryan

It isn't ever delicate to live.

— Kay Ryan

I simply want to celebrate the fact that right near your home, year in and year out, a community college is quietly…

— Kay Ryan

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

— Kay Ryan

“ Stardust is the hardest thing to hold out for. You must make of yourself a perfect plane- something still upon which…

— Kay Ryan

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

— Kay Ryan

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…

— Kay Ryan

“The Self Is Not Portable The self is not portable. It cannot be packed. It comes sneaking back to any place from…

— Kay Ryan

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

— Kay Ryan

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

— Kay Ryan

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…

— Kay Ryan

“Hide and Seek It's hard not to jump out instead of waiting to be found. It's hard to be alone so long…

— Kay Ryan

“There are high places that don’t invite us, sharp shapes, glacier-scraped faces, whole ranges whose given names slip off. Any such relation…

— Kay Ryan

I simply want to celebrate the fact that right near your home, year in and year out, a community college is quietly…

— Kay Ryan

“A certain kind of Eden holds us thrall.”

— Kay Ryan

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.…

— Kay Ryan

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

“One can't work/by limelight.//A bowlful/right at/one's elbow//produces no/more than/a baleful/glow against/the kitchen table.//The fruit purveyor's/whole unstable/pyramid//doesn't equal/what daylight did.”

— Kay Ryan

“Not even waste/is inviolate./The day misspent,/the love misplaced,/has inside it/the seed of redemption./Nothing is exempt from resurrection.”

— Kay Ryan

Tenderness and Rot Tenderness and rot share a border. And rot is an aggressive neighbor whose iridescence keeps creeping over. No lessons…

— Kay Ryan

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

— Kay Ryan

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

— Kay Ryan

“ Ledge Birds that love high trees and winds and riding flailing branches hate ledges as gripless and narrow, so that a…

— Kay Ryan

It seems like many people think that if you drive yourself crazy, then you can write. I’m absolutely not interested in that.…

— Kay Ryan

“In the hills giant oaks Fall upon their knees You can touch parts You have no right to”

— Kay Ryan