Wednesday 22 September 2010

Oh Kay!

The more I read of the extraordinary American poet Kay Ryan, the more I admire - actually love - her. I've passed on the odd poem of hers in the past... What I didn't realise was that she's equally gifted - and in much the same way - in prose. Yesterday I came across this wonderfully funny, blisteringly honest and expertly crafted piece of rapportage. Only Kay Ryan could have written this - the spare, wiry style, the tangy turn of phrase, the sharp insight, always the fewest words necessary - but I must say that I wholeheartedly share her aversion to all forms of co-operative endeavour in the 'creative' field. Never was it so well (and generously) expressed.

5 comments:

  1. Yes! So much suggested, nothing imposed, and really no "I" in the way. What to make of it is left up to us, not from diffidence but as a kind of graceful compliment. I must buy a book of her poetry.

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  2. Do Mark - I can heartily recommend The Niagara River, which is available fairly cheap online... The trouble with her way of writing poetry is that there's little to say about it, nothing to add - it just works, it's entirely sufficient - the critics' despair!

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  3. "Rapportage" is good -- your coinage ?? Good because the strength of the piece flows from Ms Ryan's uneager, semigrudging rapport with the workshoppers and conferencees.

    I agree absolutely about
    "transgressive": this is not just horribly overused but has the particular tiresomeness of people congratulating themselves and each other on their imagined naughtiness.

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  4. An inadvertent coinage Jonathan - my unconscious at work, how odd - I must have meant reportage but had KR's strange rapport somewhere in mind... Patrick Kurp has another wonderful KR poem today -
    http://evidenceanecdotal.blogspot.com/

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  5. Thanks, Nige, AbeBooks to the rescue for that title. The literature desk at Blackwells in town said they'd never heard of her. Well they have now.

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