The Best of It: New and Selected Poems

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More About This Book

Overview

Kay Ryan’s recently concluded two-year term as the Library of Congress’s sixteenth poet laureate is just the latest in an amazing array of accolades for this wonderfully accessible, widely loved poet—her awards include the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize from the Poetry Foundation, four Pushcart Prizes, and a Guggenheim fellowship. Ryan’s The Best of It: New and Selected Poems has garnered lavish praise. The two hundred poems in The Best of It offer a stunning retrospective of her work, as well as a swath of never-before-published poems—all of which are sure to appeal equally to longtime fans and general readers.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly
Ryan, the current U.S. poet laureate, may well be the oddest and wisest poet to hold that prestigious post. Her tiny, skinny poems pack a punch unlike anything else in contemporary poetry, though not unlike haiku, if haiku could be cut with a dash of Groucho Marx. This, her first retrospective volume, which also contains a book's worth of new poems, is a much-needed introduction to the work of one of our best and most accessible poets. She asks the necessary questions hiding just beneath the obvious ones: “Why isn't it all/ more marked,/ why isn't every wall/ graffitied, every park tree/ stripped/... / Not why people are; why not more violent?” Odd rhymes draw crystal clear relations between disparate thoughts we never realized had always gone together: “As/ though our garden/ could be one bean/ and we'd rejoice if/ it flourishes, as/ though one bean/ could nourish us.” Pithy poems manage to encapsulate far more than their few words should be able to hold, as in “Bitter Pill,” a new poem: “A bitter pill/ doesn't need/ to be swallowed/ to work. Just/ reading your name/ on the bottle/ does the trick.” Sassy, smart, and deep as they are hilarious, Ryan's poems are among the best. (Mar.)
Dwight Garner
Kay Ryan's poems are as slim as runway models, so tiny you could almost tweet them. Their compact refinement, though, does not suggest ease or chic. Her voice is quizzical and impertinent, funny in uncomfortable ways, scuffed by failure and loss. Her mastery, like Emily Dickinson's, has some awkwardness in it, some essential gawkiness that draws you close…The Best of It is a generous and nearly career-spanning collection of her verse (it omits poems from her earliest books), a greatest-hits album of a sort.
—The New York Times
More Reviews (2) Fewer Reviews
Steven Ratiner
When [Ryan's] at the top of her game (and, happily, the section of new work contains some of the book's strongest material), she has the uncanny ability to construct a tiny word-mechanism that produces the experience of genuine wonder…In the utter complexity of her vision and lyricism, I'm reminded of those mechanical devices of the ancient world meant to show us our place among the stars and help us navigate the uncharted darkness beyond. And in the very best examples, Ryan's poems do precisely that.
—The Washington Post
Library Journal
In her new book, current U.S. poet laureate Ryan (Elephant Rocks) gives readers a panoramic view of how her poetry has evolved. Throughout her career, Ryan has used a compressed and condensed language charged with playfulness and wit: "Wherever the eye lingers/ it finds a hunger/ The things of the world/want us for dinner/ Inside each pebble or leaf/ or puddle is a hook/ the appetites of the world/ compete to catch a look." She writes about anything, reviving the idea of poetry as a means of naming and actualizing things through the eyes of a poet/creator. The rhymes don't seem imposed but rather a natural manifestation of creating meaning, and her dense, fractured lines and the white space they create echo Dickinson. Ultimately, Ryan fuses science with myth in a language grounded in the concrete; she often opens with a plain image or even a cliché that soon develops into something far deeper and more detailed. VERDICT Ryan's poetry offers a fresh experience of seeing and knowing that all serious poetry readers will enjoy.—Sadiq Alkoriji, South Regional Lib., Broward Cty., FL

Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780802119148
  • Publisher: Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
  • Publication date: 3/23/2010
  • Pages: 270
  • Sales rank: 210,636
  • Product dimensions: 5.80 (w) x 8.40 (h) x 1.00 (d)

Meet the Author

Kay Ryan served as Poet Laureate of the United States from 2008 through 2010.
She has long lived in Marin County, California.

Customer Reviews

Average Rating 4.5
( 7 )

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Sort by: Showing all of 5 Customer Reviews

  • Posted May 25, 2011

    more from this reviewer

    Like Beautiful Marbles.

    Ryan's powerful descriptive voice is on full display in this Pulitzer prize winning collection. Short but evocative poetry.

    1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

  • Anonymous

    Posted March 18, 2012

    Best Poetry I have read in a long time!

    Kay Ryan has a wonderful way of taking ordinary, mundane things and exploring them with her word choice. She takes things and changes the ordinary into art. I can't help but smile when I read her poetry!

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

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    Posted May 8, 2011

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    Posted July 27, 2011

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