A Conversation with Poet Kay Ryan
From: National Endowment for the Arts
Series: Art Works Podcast
Length: 21:52
And even though Ryan's collection, The Best of It, won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry this year, she didn't always want to be a poet. Here's why.
Kay Ryan: Your poetry has to be transparent. If you write well, you are utterly exposed. And so for a long time, I simply didn't want to be the person who wasn't just a funny person. I wanted to be a joke telling person. I wanted to be somebody with a pickup truck. And it would've been much more comfortable to, say, be a carpenter or- or maybe, an electrician than a poet. Something that you could, you could hold up your head and have conversation about. "Yep. Been having a lot of trouble getting really good quality copper pipe these days." You know, give you something practical to talk about.
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Related Pieces
Piece Description
And even though Ryan's collection, The Best of It, won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry this year, she didn't always want to be a poet. Here's why.
Kay Ryan: Your poetry has to be transparent. If you write well, you are utterly exposed. And so for a long time, I simply didn't want to be the person who wasn't just a funny person. I wanted to be a joke telling person. I wanted to be somebody with a pickup truck. And it would've been much more comfortable to, say, be a carpenter or- or maybe, an electrician than a poet. Something that you could, you could hold up your head and have conversation about. "Yep. Been having a lot of trouble getting really good quality copper pipe these days." You know, give you something practical to talk about.
Transcript
Transcript of an interview with Kay Ryan
ARTWORKS INTRO
[Take Five theme woven in and out of a montage of voices talking about the arts]
Kay Ryan: I demand a lot of sound from a poem.
Joe Haj: The arts are filled with people who are nontraditional thinkers.
Jo Reed: The arts are a wonderful window onto the soul of America.
Stan Lee: I started ending my columns by saying Excelsior!
[Brubeck fades to piano piece by Todd Barton]
Azar Nafisi: Reading awakens your senses.
Kay Ryan: If you write well, you are utterly exposed.
Olivia de Havilland: A voice said, "This is George Cukor."
Brenda Wineapple: Its value will never be diminished.
Marilynne Robison: The oldest art we have is narrative literature.
Lee Childs: The arts are what makes us human.
Tim O'Brien: There is a reason that fiction exists.
[Piano fades to Rain by the Birmingham Sunlights]
David Newell: Theatre can really change pe...
Read the full transcript
Musical Works
| Title | Artist | Album | Label | Year | Length |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Take Five | Dave Brubeck Quartet (composed by Paul Desmond) | Take Five. | Derry Music Company | 1959 | 00:00 |
Additional Credits
Interview conducted and edited by Jo Reed.
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