July 17, 2008 - Our Pretty Tough Pick of the Week may seem a bit odd but read on….
Kay Ryan , an award-winning poet and self-described “modern hermit,” was named the next U.S. poet laureate today. The Library of Congress announced that the lifelong Californian, whose compressed, metaphysical poetry has been compared to Emily Dickinson’s , will become the 16th U.S. poet laureate, starting in the autumn.
How she became a poet, however, is closely tied to her love of cycling. In her twenties, she and a friend left California on a 4,000-mile cross-country bicycle trip, which would give her time to think about whether to devote herself to poetry as a vocation.
As the friends pedaled through Colorado, the repetitive, rhythmic exercise gave Ryan a sense of oneness with her surroundings. In that moment of heightened awareness, Ryan, realized she liked writing better than anything else.
Since then, Ryan has fashioned a life conducive to poetry, one in which the essential elements of that bike trip - repetition, expansiveness, and large intellectual leaps - shape both her daily routine and her voice as a writer.
And since that ephiphany on the seat of her bike, Ryan has been the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts as well as numerous prestigious literary awards. Not bad for a woman who was once considered too independent to be accepted by her college’s poetry club. Ride on Kay….
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