I simply want to celebrate the fact that right near your home, year in and year out, a community college is quietly - and with very little financial encouragement - saving lives and minds. I can’t think of a more efficient, hopeful or egalitarian machine, with the possible exception of the bicycle.

Kay Ryan

Categorized in : Home College Encouragement

The day misspent, the love misplaced, has inside it the seed of redemption. Nothing is exempt from resurrection.

misplaced redemption resurrection

Small presses take chances. Chances are at the heart of all the l... by Kay Ryan

Small presses take chances. Chances are at the heart of all the literature we later know as great.

chance literature heart

As for reality, I don't even have any interest in that word. by Kay Ryan

As for reality, I don't even have any interest in that word.

interest reality

Who would have guessed it possible that waiting is sustainable. A... by Kay Ryan

Who would have guessed it possible that waiting is sustainable. A place with its own harvest.

harvest waiting

What keeps me writing is that I can only know through writing. My major sense organ is apparently a pencil.

organs knows writing

A lot of the job that one has to do as a writer is to protect the thing that doesn't match the world.

protect jobs world

A too closely watched flower/blossoms the wrong color./Excess attention to the jonquil/turns it gentian. Flowers/need it tranquil to get/their hues right. Some/only open at midnight.

color midnight flower

It’s hard not to jump out instead of waiting to be found. It’s hard to be alone so long and then hear someone come around. It’s like some form of skin’s developed in the air that, rather than have torn, you tear. "Hide and Seek

air waiting long

It isn't ever delicate to live. by Kay Ryan

It isn't ever delicate to live.

delicate

I don't think any poetry is written that isn't primarily written to the self, in a way... I'm always talking to myself. But I seem to want somebody else to listen to it. I need, I do want an audience. So it's a strange thing. It's a very private conversation that then, you make public, kind of, like, the starfish flipping its stomach out.

self talking thinking

If we have not struggled/as hard as we can/at our strongest/how will we sense/the shape of our losses/or know what sustains/us longest or name/what change costs us,/saying how strange/it is that one sector/of the self can step in/for another in trouble,/how loss activates/a latent double, how/we can feed/as upon nectar/upon need?

self names loss

I have tried to live very quietly, so I could be happy. by Kay Ryan

I have tried to live very quietly, so I could be happy.

Gaps don't/just happen./There is a/generative element/inside them,/a welling motion/ as when cold/waters shoulder/up through/warmer oceans./And where gaps/choose to widen,/coordinates warp,/even in places/constant since/the oldest maps.

elements ocean water

It seems like many people think that if you drive yourself crazy, then you can write. I’m absolutely not interested in that. It made sense to me to be as whole and well as I could be, and as happy. I wanted to see what a fortunate life would produce. What writing would come out of a mind that didn’t try to torment itself? What did I have to know? What did I have to do rather than what can I torment and bend myself into doing? What was the fruit on that tree?

crazy writing thinking

CROWN Too much rain loosens trees. In the hills giant oaks fall upon their knees. You can touch parts you have no right to— places only birds should fly to.

rain bird fall

Action creates/a taste/for itself. by Kay Ryan

Action creates/a taste/for itself.

taste action

Failure: the renewable resource. by Kay Ryan

Failure: the renewable resource.

renewable-resources resources

It's important to have your private enjoyments because sometimes... by Kay Ryan

It's important to have your private enjoyments because sometimes that's all we have.

enjoyment important sometimes

The only real access that I have to my mind is when I'm writing. by Kay Ryan

The only real access that I have to my mind is when I'm writing.

real mind writing

BAIT GOAT There is a distance where magnets pull, we feel, having held them back. Likewise there is a distance where words attract. Set one out like a bait goat and wait and seven others will approach. But watch out: roving packs can pull your word away. You find your stake yanked and some rough bunch to thank.

bait distance waiting