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Each escape

involved some art,

some hokum, and

at least a brief

incomprehensible

exchange between

the man and metal

during which the

chains were not

so much broken

as he and they

blended. At the

end of each such   

mix he had to

extract himself. It

Was the hardest

part to get right

routinely: breaking

back into the   

same Houdini.

Used by permission of the author.

Source: Poetry (November 2004).

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MORE FROM THIS ISSUE

This poem originally appeared in the November 2004 issue of Poetry magazine

View this poem in its original format

• Letter to the Editor
  by Emily Rosko
• Letter to the Editor
  by Daniel Rifenburgh
• Letter to the Editor
  by Yusef Komunyakaa

• November 2004 Table of Contents
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More about this poem

Biography

Born in California in 1945 and acknowledged as one of the most original voices in the contemporary landscape, Kay Ryan is the author of several books of poetry, including Flamingo Watching (2006), The Niagara River (2005), and Say Uncle (2000). Her book The Best of It: New and Selected Poems (2010) won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. Ryan's tightly compressed, rhythmically dense poetry is often compared to that of Emily . . .

Continue reading this biography

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Poems by Kay Ryan

• A Ball Rolls on a Point
• A Certain Kind of Eden
• A Hundred Bolts of Satin
• Album
• All You Did

• More poems by Kay Ryan (38 poems)
  • Atlas
  • Bait Goat
  • Blandeur
  • Blast
  • Carrying a Ladder
  • Cloud
  • Crocodile Tears
  • Crown
  • Cut Out For It
  • Felix Crow
  • Flamingo Watching
  • He Lit a Fire with Icicles
  • Home to Roost
  • Linens
  • Miser Time
  • New Rooms
  • Paired Things
  • Party Ship
  • Pinhole
  • Repetition
  • Repulsive Theory
  • Salvage
  • Sharks' Teeth
  • Soft
  • Still Start
  • Surfaces
  • Tenderness and Rot
  • The Fabric of Life
  • The Late Worm
  • The Obsoletion of a Language
  • The Pieces That Fall To Earth
  • Thin
  • Turtle

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Poem Categorization

SUBJECT Nature, The Body, Social Commentaries, Popular Culture

POET’S REGION U.S., Western

Poetic Terms Free Verse

If you disagree with this poem's categorization, make a suggestion.

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Video

• Unlikely Laureate: A Conversation with Kay Ryan
• Sharks’ Teeth
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Articles

• Animal Magic by Aidin Vaziri
• Eight Takes: Swann, Rogers, Brock, Howard, Nelson, Logan, Ryan, Stevenson by D. H. Tracy
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Events

• Elizabeth Alexander, Billy Collins, Sandra Cisneros, Robert Hass, Edward Hirsch, and Kay Ryan | In Conversation with Jeffrey Brown of the PBS NewsHour
• Kay Ryan | A Reading
• Poetry & Music: "100th Anniversary Garland" of Poetry Magazine Selections

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