2024 the best of it review
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(as of Dec 14, 2024 15:56:09 UTC - Details)
Kay Ryan’s recently concluded two-year term as the Library of Congress’s sixteenth poet laureate is just the latest in an amazing array of accolades for this wonderfully accessible, widely loved poether awards include the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize from the Poetry Foundation, four Pushcart Prizes, and a Guggenheim fellowship. Ryan’s The Best of It: New and Selected Poems has garnered lavish praise. The two hundred poems in The Best of It offer a stunning retrospective of her work, as well as a swath of never-before-published poemsall of which are sure to appeal equally to longtime fans and general readers.
Publisher : Grove Press (April 2, 2011)
Language : English
Paperback : 270 pages
ISBN-10 : 0802145213
ISBN-13 : 978-0802145215
Reading age : 16 years and up
Item Weight : 11.5 ounces
Dimensions : 5.92 x 0.76 x 8.22 inches
Reviewer: bookkook
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: pure pleasure
Review: I'm just half through with the book however I am enjoying it so much I feel compelled to post.As a reader I deeply want to develop critical skills for reading poetry, and to have the same experience that I've had with good books, which is to finish with some insight that I can apply to my life and some emotion that I remember long after the book is shelved (or filed, these days). Poetry has eluded me for the most part- I've been very happy with some poems, the majority of them confuse me or leave me nonplussed. This has been a life long struggle for me. It's annoying to feel as if you don't "get it", in any context.These poems are a literal representation of what the poet sees, amazingly devoid of emotion for the most part - the reader is invited to react from personal experience. I clearly understand what she is describing on every line, and in most poems I can relate and I am moved. When I have no personal basis to relate to the poem I am still happy to view clear expression of the language, rather like a painting of somewhere I've not been to yet.Another reviewer here suggested taking advantage of the preview before purchasing - I took the advice, and will take this opportunity to affirm the suggestion, and heartily recommend this book, even for poetry novices.
Reviewer: Patricia Rockwood
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: A master poet
Review: As an aspiring poet, I grab on to the "greats" to show me the ropes, as it were, to lead by example. I can find no better example than Kay Ryan in this book of poems, which earned her one of the highest honors in letters possible: the Pulitzer. I was entranced from the first poem. Kay Ryan's poems are mostly short and easy to read, but when you study them, you learn there are many more layers under the surface.
Reviewer: Sara M. Robinson, author of Stones for Words
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: The Pleasure of Kay Ryan
Review: The Best of It: New and Collected Poems of Kay Ryan is a must on any poet lover's bookstand. I am reading it slowly as I want to savor every word. I close my eyes after each and pretend I have just finished an exotic chocolate bar.This incredible writer has been Poet Laureate of the United States for a reason. No,for many many reasons. The brevity and clarity of her poems become miniature masterpieces of thought and narrative. How does one manage to write so much in such few lines? Ah, there is the magic. And the skill. I have two hopes: One that she never stops writing and Two, that someday I can craft a poem where someone says that it reminds him of something Kay Ryan would write.
Reviewer: Louise T. Taylor
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: the pleasure grows with rereading
Review: I love the the attention to the line in her poetry. I love the way she plays with rhyme, but the rhymes are not usually at line's end. I love her awareness of how surprising the world actually is and how she captures these surprises in her poems. And I love the humor in her poems. For example, in a poem called "The Mock Ruin," she writes about a Roman theater in Libya, where the most preserved part of the structure is a a backdrop for some performance. The last lines of the poem are " . . . Maybe there is something/ to falseness that doesn't get reported."
Reviewer: Ohioan
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Admirable Craft
Review: Before buying this book, I had never read poetry by Kay Ryan. Being introduced to her poetry was a good experience. Some poems, such as "Spiderweb," strike me as exquisite in design and craft as well as in meaning and intent. Others I can't even remember -- though I think that I can now recognize a Kay Ryan poem when I see one, because she's a distinctive writer with her own style and slant on the world. While I appreciate being introduced to the craft of Ryan's poetry, I think the collection is too large: these poems might make more of an impression if there were fewer of them. And while I admire the craft and thought that goes into these poems, I at the same time wish for more weighty subject matter.
Reviewer: dancinlu
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Great collection
Review: Recommended by a friend and Iâm thoroughly enjoying this collection of poems.
Reviewer: Sherab K
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: An Appropriate title
Review: Ms Ryan has the ability to penetrate into the subtleties and nuances of ordinary experiences and relationships and deploy them to captivate the reader in a direct and homey way.In language she has mastered brevity and rhythm,she knows the devious art of turning the weights and shapes and sounds of words into a spell that will change the reader's head. Did I mention humor? Her poems nudge you with an invisible elbow. Read ten of them and for awhile at least, you'll be more the way you like to be.
Reviewer: Carol
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: these poems are wonderful, consistent, apparently light but then you reread them...
Reviewer: Soumyaroop Majumdar
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Very few poets have affected, probably even inflected me in the way of Kay Ryan's compact and unsettling poems.
Customers say
Customers find the poems wonderful, clever, and thought-provoking. They also describe the poetry as accessible, with energy and wit. Readers appreciate the humor in the poems and describe the book as a rolling good read.
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