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Poetry Magazine

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• About Poetry Magazine

It is very stretchy.   

We know that, even if   

many details remain   

sketchy. It is complexly   

woven. That much too   

has pretty well been   

proven. We are loath   

to continue our lessons   

which consist of slaps   

as sharp and dispersed   

as bee stings from   

a smashed nest   

when any strand snaps—

hurts working far past   

the locus of rupture,   

attacking threads   

far beyond anything   

we would have said   

connects.

Source: Poetry (June 2000).

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MORE FROM THIS ISSUE

This poem originally appeared in the June 2000 issue of Poetry magazine

• Numbers
  by Mary Cornish
• A Hopkins Rumble, 1999
  by John Hazard
• Hudson
  by Hugh Seidman

• June 2000 Table of Contents
• Subscribe to Poetry magazine
• About Poetry magazine
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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
  • Repetition
  • Repulsive Theory
  • Salvage
  • Sharks' Teeth
  • Soft
  • Still Start
  • Surfaces
  • Tenderness and Rot
  • The Late Worm
  • The Obsoletion of a Language
  • The Pieces That Fall To Earth
  • Thin
  • Turtle

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Poem Categorization

SUBJECT Relationships, Living, Disappointment & Failure, School & Learning, Activities

POET’S REGION U.S., Western

Poetic Terms Free Verse, Consonance, Metaphor

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

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Related

Audio

• Poetry Off the Shelf: 100 Years of Poetry Magazine
• Poetry Off the Shelf: Abusing Animals in the Name of Poetry
• Poem of the Day: All You Did
• Atlas
• Poem of the Day: A Ball Rolls on a Point
• Poem of the Day: Blandeur
• Carrying a Ladder
• The Poetry Magazine Podcast: Charms that Forestall Harm
• Poem of the Day: Crown
• The Poetry Magazine Podcast: Feeling Like a Worm in Tequila?
• Poem of the Day: Felix Crow
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• Poem of the Day: He Lit a Fire with Icicles
• Home to Roost
• Poem of the Day: Houdini
• Poem of the Day: A Hundred Bolts of Satin
• Essential American Poets: Kay Ryan: Essential American Poets
• Poetry Off the Shelf: Kay Ryan on Robert Frost
• Poem of the Day: Linens
• Poem of the Day: The Obsoletion of a Language
• Poem of the Day: Paired Things
• Poem of the Day: The Pieces That Fall to Earth
• Poetry Off the Shelf: Poem Before the Event
• Poetry Off the Shelf: The Poetry Garage
• Turtle
• Poem of the Day: Turtle

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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