Swept Up Whole

Did you know that Kay Ryan is our new poet laureate?  I will freely admit that I’d never read any Kay Ryan, even though I do read a fair amount of comtemporary poetry.  But, after hearing an amazing interview with Kay Ryan on NPR a few weeks ago, I headed straight to the poetry section of my local Barnes N’ Noble, absolutly confident that of course I’d find ALL of her books, and if not all, then at least I’d find ONE of her recent books.  Because, after all, she’s THE FREAKIN’ POET LAUREATE OF THE USA! 

But, alas, I found nothing. How dare they, eh? I mean, no, this is not Secretary Of State, but still…  this is a respected post.  A post that’s been held by the following, to name a few of the famous, (and many, many more) amazing poets:

Robert Penn Warren

Robert Lowell

Elizabeth Bishop

William Carlos Williams

Gwendolyn Brooks

Rita Dove

Robert Haas

Robert Pinsky

(And , if you’re interested, here are more: http://www.loc.gov/poetry/laureate.html)

Yup, so anyway, apparently the news loop is slooooow when it comes to Poet Laureates. But. BnN were “happy to look it up for me,” and “happy to order anything”, which I do appreciate, and they were also respectably embarrased about the oversite in their stacks.  And so… Last night, I was at BnN for my usual knit nite, and I picked up the Kay Ryan book they ordered for me, Elephant Rocks.

And I’ve had fun tonight getting to know this poet.

I know it’s not cool for bloggers to reproduce author’s works w/o copyright, but this one is short, and I think Kay won’t mind, given that the biggest bookstore chain in the country didn’t happen to have her book(s) in stock when I went looking for them. Shame on them.

So, here is one of her gems:

Swept Up Whole

You aren’t swept up whole,
however it feels. You’re
atomized. The wind passes.
You recongeal. It’s
a surprise.

This one struck me right away. Because it resonates with me, reminding me of various difficult points in my life, but also, it especially resonates right now, because I have a few (three, in particular) dear friends who are going through agonizingly painful things right now. And all I ever want to tell each of them is that I love them and that it does get better. But it always feels lame to say so. Sometimes a poem helps. And I think this one does.