Customer Reviews on Amazon.com

1. 25 of 33 people found this review helpful

   By John Michael Albert on Amazon.com 21 April, 2010

   Each a Slice of Poppy Seed Cake. Just that.

   Format:Hardcover

   In the episode on Emily Dickinson, the PBS Series Voices and Visions took great pains to make three points about her background. Dickinson lived in an age when everyone lived in the constant company of Death, and she lived in an age when all youths were encouraged to be voraciously curious about nature. Add the omnipresence of Protestant hymnody in the lives of everyone in New England with its implicit poetic form and, like flour, milk and eggs to a cake, you have the three main ingredients of Dickinson's poetry. [P] It wasn't until I made this connection (thanks to a jacket note by J. D. McClatchy in the current volume) that I felt I was ready to enter the kitchen with Kay Ryan. I think she is a poet who, deliberately or not, has reincarnated the spirit of Dickinson in the late 20th century and, to make sure I don't go too far with the comparison, summoned that spirit on the opposite coast. No great preachments here. Personal observations, usually brightened with the presence of a birdy, a bunny, or a bivalve but especially birds (particular birds as well as wings, feathers, eggs an eggshells, flight, nest etc.). [P] And all peppered with an appreciation for the shimmering verbal effect of internal rhymes and off-rhymes. All the poems in this collection are a page long or less, which focuses my attention on form, which seems to be the focus of Ryan at her most playful. Take, for instance, her drive-by sonnet, "Full Measure," a sonnet in the progress of its argument, a sonnet in its fourteen-line length. Imitating the `jangling sack-full-of-keys' relentless rhymes of a sonnet, she scatters off rhymes throughout, like tart bits of lemon zest in a poppy seed cake: measure, favors, another, water, flavor, butter, pressure, shatter and nature. Only at the end, in what suggests the Shakespearian apotheosis-couplet, does she change the rhyme to break and -take. Otherwise, it isn't anything as historically full-of-itself as a sonnet. It's a fully realized human being sharing a moment of unselfconscious fun. [P] I read a collection of Ryan's poetry, Say Uncle, on her ascendancy to the Poet Laureateship and was completely befuddled. To my poor eyes, her poems certainly had nothing in common with the work of Simic, Hall, Kooser, Gluck, Collins or Kunitz, her immediate Poet-Laureate predecessors. Lines were unrelated to meaning. She placed line breaks on conjunctions and articles. Lines were one to five (usually two to four) words long--again, regardless to meaning. Potential end-rhymes in the poems were scattered here and there by the irrational line breaks suggesting the hand of a really bad typesetter. Sense was there, but made hard to abstract because of the way the poems were presented. [P] Reading this belated collection (belated because her term as PL is almost over and I think they've lost out on a lot of sales), The Best of It, New and Selected Poems (which is in reverse chronological order of composition), I think I have a better idea of what's going on in Ryan's poetry. Ryan's poems are not about conversation or communication; they're about unvarnished observation, with the interjection of a droll sense of humor, that poppy seed cake (again) the moment you slice it and slide the first piece out. Just that. I may be wrong about her inspiration and her intentions, and I certainly missed the point when I read her before, but I really like these poems all the same. Mind you, I don't think it would have made any difference to Dickinson if I told her I liked her verse (unless my last name were Higginson, of course), and I get the same impression when I'm reading Ryan.
2. 11 of 16 people found this review helpful

   By J. Cohen on Amazon.com 26 November, 2010

   The Best American Poetry Gets?

   Format:Hardcover

   The New York Times Book Review just came out with its 100 Notable Books for 2010, and three Times book reviewers also listed their own top 10 for 2010. One of these reviewers, Dwight Garner, chose a book of poems to include in his list. His choice is Kay Ryan's "The Best of It: New and Selected Poems" which Garner says is "about as good as American poetry gets [right now]."
   
   On the one hand, I am very pleased to see a book of poems make one of the Times top ten lists; I've never seen it happen before. Poetry often makes the top 100 but never the top 10. And while Kay Ryan's book is a respectable choice, I'm going to have to disagree with Mr. Garner; Ryan's work is definitely not "as good as American poetry gets." Don't get me wrong. I actually like some of Ryan's poems. Her poems are clipped, cute, and often clever, but they rarely have much meat on them.
   
   I'll try to explain what I mean by this last comment: reading one or two of her best poems in one of the literary magazines can be enjoyable, but when you're reading an entire book of her work, you realize just how slight her poetry really is. That's not to say that her poems are bad; they aren't bad, they're just not "great." She certainly enjoys playing with language, and this can lead her to some really amusing bits; for instance, in some of her best (and most characteristic) poems, she toys with the logic of idioms in ways that are sometimes poignant and funny.
   
   But you never get blown away by any of her poems because Ryan eschews serious poetic ambition, never really challenging herself or her readers. Writing about language can be fun, but after two or three poems, it starts to get old and even a little boring. To put it another way, Emily Dickinson once said something to the effect that she knew she'd read a good poem if she felt like her head was just knocked off. Unfortunately, none of Ryan's poems will knock your head off.
   
   I also don't like the way Kay Ryan employs rhyme in her poems. She likes to have these random rhymes, scattered throughout her poems haphazardly. It's like she's trying to hide them, as if using rhyme were an embarassment--which it shouldn't be (if it's used with care and skill).
   
   My vote for the best book of poems this year is Lynn Emanuel's " Noose and Hook (Pitt Poetry Series) " instead. Emanuel's book might not have been reviewed by the NY Times Book Section this year, but I think it's more deserving of the Times' top ten list than Ryan's more modest achievement.
   
   NOTE: Since I originally posted this review, this book won the 2011 Pulitzer for Poetry! It's probable that the high praise Ryan's book received from the NY Times might have had something to do with Ryan's win. And although I'm sure that Ryan's diehard fans will disagree with me on this one, I don't think her "Best of It" (or any of Ryan's individual volumes) was deserving of a Pulitzer. Ryan is a minor American poet. And this is not necessarily a knock. Being a minor poet in America is actually quite an accomplishment(especially since poetry here is so marginalized). But looking through this volume, I think that Ryan will be lucky if more than one or two of her poems last the test of time. I would like to be able to make greater claims for Ryan's poetry, but I just don't think those kinds of claims would be justified.
3. 4 of 6 people found this review helpful

   By DabblerArts on Amazon.com 24 December, 2010

   One of the mild detractors

   Format:Hardcover

   Like the other unenthusiastic reviews, I have to say that there are a few poems that I do enjoy. Rhyme is always fun - add in some droll observations and you're got entertainment that's fun for the whole family. Nothing here strikes me as great work, however. I think the poem "Great Thoughts" explains it all - great thoughts are like the eucalyptus, they sap the ground of water and make an ugly grove. True to those word, the poems are determined to be small. I prefer longer lines and meatier ideas, however.
   
   Again, I have nothing against this. Though many poems are overly cute and elicit from me a sigh, others are genial enough. It's just not very memorable. (Incidentally, Ryan's many interviews have put me off the poetry - so solemn and so serious, the poet! But I'm glad I did open this book again, for a few chuckles.) Hie thee to Geoffrey Hill or Anne Carson for real mind-blowing stuff.