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Poetry Magazine

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Trying to walk

the same way

to the same store

takes high-wire

balance:

each step

not exactly

as before

risks chasms

of flatness.

One stumble

alone and   

nothing

happens.

Few are

the willing

and fewer

the champions.

Source: Poetry (January 2008).

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MORE FROM THIS ISSUE

This poem originally appeared in the January 2008 issue of Poetry magazine

• Citation
  by Joshua Mehigan
• Dogwood
  by William Johnson
• Made to Measure
  by Stephen Edgar

• January 2008 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
  • Houdini
  • Linens
  • Miser Time
  • New Rooms
  • Paired Things
  • Party Ship
  • Pinhole
  • 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 Activities, Travels & Journeys, Social Commentaries, Life Choices

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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• Poem of the Day: Houdini
• Poem of the Day: A Hundred Bolts of Satin
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• Poetry Off the Shelf: Kay Ryan on Robert Frost
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• Poem of the Day: The Pieces That Fall to Earth
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• Turtle
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Video

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

Articles

• Animal Magic by Aidin Vaziri
• Eight Takes: Swann, Rogers, Brock, Howard, Nelson, Logan, Ryan, Stevenson by D. H. Tracy
• The Pigheaded Soul by Jason Guriel

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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