Monday, June 3, 2013

New Work

Party Ship

BY KAY RYAN
You are a
land I can’t
stand leaving
and can’t not.
My party ship
is pulling out.
We all have
hats. I try to
toot some notes
you’ll understand
but this was not
our instrument
or plan.
from Poetry  


The newly overt darkness in Kay Ryan's voice both does and does not alter her unmistakable  tone (siphoning playfulness out still leaves tenderness for the instability of the world standing at the center of her work, where it always stood).

It startles, all the same, this sudden tilt in the horizon line, as if the sea might go sliding off the screen altogether, or the poem off the page.