Tell All the Truth but Tell It Slant--

United States Poet Laureate Kay Ryan writes poems that are short and thin, like needles. She's easy to compare to Emily Dickinson, and I won't veer from that quick analysis--fans of Dickinson will like Ryan's work. Her poems are small and at once incisive and vague, precise and abstract.

It's fitting that Kay Ryan's work was introduced to me in a small window of time: I got word that she was coming to the Corvallis area in May; I read the write-up of her new collection in The New Yorker April 12 issue; I am planning a month-long poetry unit in my senior class. Two weeks ago I didn't know our Poet Laureate and yet today I bought her new book, The Best of It.

The Best of It is a collection of Ryan's strongest work from earlier books as well as some new stuff. I read about a third of it already and had to put it down: the poems were so thought-provoking that I was ignoring my Sunday routines. Ryan, in an alarmingly tiny space, attaches abstract thoughts to concrete images and either makes a statement or asks a question. If words are more powerful when they're simple, direct, and free of clutter (Hemingway knew this), then Ryan's poems are pinnacles of industry, spartan shafts of light that illuminate only the truth, and illuminate it brightly.

The poem "Lighthouse Keeping" is a good example of this minimalism. "Lighthouse Keeping" is only thirteen lines long and, incredibly, no line is longer than three words. And yet, the analogy of life's troubles, as related when "seas pleat/winds keen/fogs deepen," is vivid; it needs no more elaboration. She describes the poet (the lighthouse keeper), who "keeps/a light for/those left out"--the readers. The relationship "is intimate/and remote both/for the keeper/and those afloat." Here, we get the paradox at the heart of personal poetry, the connections and detachments that artists have with those that consume their work.

One of my favorites is the title poem of her 2005 collection, The Niagara River. In the poem, "we" are floating down the Niagara River, and it is glassy and tranquil, compared to a dining room floor. We see scenes changing as we pass. The last lines are killer: "We/do know, we do/know this is the/Niagara River, but/it is hard to remember/what that means." What does that mean? What is it about the Niagara River that would require some attention on our part? The obvious answers are omitted, and we continue to float towards a great, unseen plunge. Ryan holds no assurances about our future.

The poem "Dogleg" has an interesting analogy and ends up being hopeful, kind of. "Things Shouldn't Be So Hard" and "Bitter Pill" are devastating poems about loss. There are two poems in the collection titled "Repetition," which I think is funny.

And on and on. Each poem is a tiny analogy, a mini-lesson. The subject matters are broad--love, death, nature, loss, survival. The poems I normally enjoy are more grounded, filled with bigger images, longer lines and stanzas, clear scenes, stories to tell. I'm thinking of T. R. Hummer, of Allen Ginsberg and Sylvia Plath, of Delmore Schwartz and my old poetry instructor Joseph Millar. These wise little laser-pointer poems are totally different, and make me uncomfortable on some level. Kay Ryan is worth reading for that combination of truth and discomfort. Her poems are needles: sometimes they stab. Sometimes they are acupuncture, a source of healing. Sometimes they draw blood.

The Cruellest Month

Every literary dork, when flipping the calendar to this month, murmurs the opening lines of T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land. I did; you did. Admit it. The thing is, though, it's true. April is the most mean-spirited month. There isn't really a close runner-up, a month that combines crappy weather with a total lack of state-mandated days off school. Hitler was born. The Titanic sank. Martin Luther King Jr. and Abe Lincoln were assassinated.

Even the start of baseball came with its little infamies, as my Dodgers were pummeled by the Pirates (the Pirates!) and the local high school team watched puddles collect in the outfield. Sports radio is saturated with talk of the PGA Masters and the NFL Draft, two utterly asinine events that make us forget the beauty of March Madness or the anticipation of warm-weather baseball.

Still, we power through. I drive north and south. I go on little runs, listen to good music. To live in Wilsonville is to accept a certain brand of Weltschmerz that aligns exactly with April's cruelty. At least the mercurial weather gives us something to look at. At least my Dodgers play the Pirates again tonight. At least I-5 still points south.