"Repulsive Theory"

28 November 2016: I came across this Kay Ryan poem today and it sort of blew me away, so it's today's good thing.

"Repulsive Theory"
by Kay Ryan

Little has been made 
of the soft, skirting action 
of magnets reversed, 
while much has been 
made of attraction. 
But is it not this pillowy 
principle of repulsion 
that produces the 
doily edges of oceans 
or the arabesques of thought? 
And do these cutout coasts 
and incurved rhetorical beaches 
not baffle the onslaught 
of the sea or objectionable people 
and give private life 
what small protection it's got? 
Praise then the oiled motions 
of avoidance, the pearly 
convolutions of all that 
slides off or takes a 
wide berth; praise every 
eddying vacancy of Earth, 
all the dimpled depths 
of pooling space, the whole 
swirl set up by fending-off— 
extending far beyond the personal, 
I'm convinced— 
immense and good 
in a cosmological sense: 
unpressing us against 
each other, lending 
the necessary never 
to never-ending.

"Felix Crow"

I just heard this one again on the Poem of the Day podcast while out walking in my neighborhood, an activity that always involves some bird watching.

This is one clear case of needing to both hear and see a poem, though, as those terrific short lines don't come across as clearly in the audio version. It's a fun poem ("quid pro crow") with fun rhymes ("rudiments"/"students"). I also love the double "g"s in lines 14-16. And the (sort of) unexpected turn in the last lines. I've written before about (just a bit) about how Ryan can remind one of Dickinson, and I can't help but be reminded of Dickinson's bird, who is ultimately a bit less approachable.

"Felix Crow" 
Kay Ryan

Crow school

is basic and

short as a rule—

just the rudiments

of quid pro crow

for most students.

Then each lives out

his unenlightened

span, adding his

bit of blight

to the collected

history of pushing out

the sweeter species;

briefly swaggering the

swagger of his

aggravating ancestors

down my street.

And every time

I like him

when we meet.

San Francisco, Part III

Saturday was another great day. We did attend the conference a bit, but also hit some more highlights in the city.


Again, we rode a cable car down to Fisherman's Wharf. When we got off, the driver offered to take our picture. Then he said that because we were the last off, he'd take it from two angles. By the way, check out Kari's pose in this picture. Like she's a professional model or something!



Here's the second shot the driver took. Too bad my hair is in my face!

Our main destination at the Wharf was Ghirardelli Square. Vogel had been telling us that if you went to Ghirardelli Chocolate, you could tour the place and get a free piece of chocolate. She insisted that this was true, and it sounded pretty darn awesome to Kari and me. But then the woman at the information booth looked at us like we were crazy. She told us that there hadn't been any factory there since the 60s. (True: you can read about it here.) "But you get a free piece of chocolate!" Vogel kept insisting. She even kept holding out one hand and tapping it with the other. "They put it in your hand!" Kari and I told her she must have been confusing this place with Hershey Park. From personal experience, I know that's true about Hershey. The information booth lady did tell us that in the ice-cream parlor, you could see some of the old machines. We decided that was good enough and set off to the parlor.

Imagine our surprise, then, when at the door of the store, a worker handed us a piece of chocolate. And then imagine our further surprise when, in the parlor, the old machines weren't just on display, but actually working, making batches of delicious chocolate. So--much to her delight--Vogel was vindicated. The information booth lady, meanwhile, should be more well, informed about the place where she works.


Vogel and Kari pointing to the chocolate machines.

Kari studying a pool of chocolate. We wanted to ask the workers if they ever felt the urge to jump in, but they looked pretty busy.

A happy Kari waiting for our order to arrive.

And here it is--a hot fudge sundae that we split. Yummy.

After our ice-cream, we walked down to the water. Along this way, I took this picture of Alcatraz. Kari and I really wanted to visit the Rock, but it turns out you have to reserve your spot in advance, and we hadn't done that. Maybe next time...

Looking back towards Ghirardelli Square.

Kari and I down by the water.

Later that night, after some conferencing and such, we went to North Beach and walked around a bit before having dinner at this yummy Italian place. We were sure to visit City Lights Books, where I picked up this book and a couple of postcards.

The next day, sadly, it was time to head home. But all in all, an awesome trip!

"Poems bite. And my poems are bitey."

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about Kay Ryan, our new poet laurete. Time has an interesting little piece on Ryan and the laureteship in general.

I especially like this observation from Billy Collins, whose work I've always enjoyed: "'Suddenly you're asked to stop looking at specifics — I mean, I write about saltshakers and knives and forks — and talk like a politician,' Collins says. 'You're asked to leave right side of brain and live in left side.'"

Then there are a couple of great quotations from Ryan herself: "'But I'm ready to be interrupted,' she says. 'I'm getting tired of myself, tired of inflicting myself on myself. I'm ready to inflict myself on others.'"

You know how you know she's good people? She talks about happily teaching developmental writing for thirty years--one of the hardest jobs is academia: "'It was mainly second-language students and students who lost their way in school," Ryan says. 'They wanted something that I could help them get: an understanding of the basic elements of grammar, pronouns, those pesky apostrophes. The goal was to write an effective paragraph that was coherent and well supported. We aspired to the semicolon, but that rarely happened.'"

As the article makes clear, though, the job isn't exactly without pressure, pressure that Ryan is already feeling: "But the stress of becoming America's ambassador of poetry is already keeping her up at night. 'I just lie in bed rigidly,' she says, 'and I think about how I have moved from a condition where the world can humiliate me to one where I can humiliate myself. And let down other poets.'"

The title from the post, by the way, is another quotation from Ryan--a particularly fanstastic one, I think. What a great way to describe to students how poetic language works.

Our New Poet Laureate...

...is Kay Ryan. Read all about her here, and then check out some of her poetry here. I didn't really know anything about her before, but the connections some have made to Dickinson seem quite apt to me. A few that have caught my attention: "Great Thoughts," "All Shall Be Restored," and "Paired Things."