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Kay Ryan

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REPETITION

REPETITION

REPETITION

Trying to walk
the same way
to the same store
takes high-wire
balance:
each step
not exactly
as before
risks chasms
of flatness.
One stumble
alone and
nothing
happens.
Few are
the willing
and fewer
the champions.

© 2008, Kay Ryan
From: Poetry, Vol. 191, No. 4, January
Publisher: Poetry, Chicago

Kay Ryan

Kay Ryan

(United States of America, 1954)

Many of Ryan’s poems follow a similar formula: the lines are short, there are few of them, and they are held together by frequent internal rhyming and unusual, powerful imagery. Small and mighty, one might say, they pull you closer to the page. ‘A Ball Rolls On a Point’ follows a “ball/ of who we are” as it rolls through a “fibrous jungle”. The jungle, like life, is full of unforeseen, unprovok...

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Poems of Kay Ryan

HOUDINI

BAIT GOAT

A BALL ROLLS ON A POINT

CROCODILE TEARS

SHARKS\' TEETH

REPETITION

FELIX CROW

CLOUD

CUT OUT FOR IT

THE LATE WORM

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REPETITION

Trying to walk
the same way
to the same store
takes high-wire
balance:
each step
not exactly
as before
risks chasms
of flatness.
One stumble
alone and
nothing
happens.
Few are
the willing
and fewer
the champions.

From: Poetry, Vol. 191, No. 4, January

REPETITION

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