The Washington Posttalked to U.S. Poet Laureate Kay Ryan at the National Book Festival.
Kay Ryan admits that she writes long hand, each morning, in bed. She also says she has a new Laureate wardrobe. She talked about how she thinks about poetry and how people appreciate poetry differently.
It isn't interesting to me. It is not a way that I sort poetry. I sort poetry by the feel it gives my brain. It has nothing to do with gender. I would put Emily Dickinson at the very top of the list, however... People appreciate poetry for many reasons other than poetry. Like, they like the fact that it talks about God, or that it talks about flowers, or that it talks about horses. Or they like it because it's written by women, or by Portuguese people... But I'm interested in--I don't even know what to call it--the essential feel element that doesn't have anything to do with gender.
She also says she even gets recognized now that she is the U.S. Poet Laureate.
I do! I was at a festival recently at Yosemite, and I was standing in line to use the bathroom. This was up in the Tuolumne Meadows, and the people said, You go first! And I said, Oh I couldn't possibly. They said, You must! There was quite a line, and I said, This is great! And then at the reading, I said: Auden said that poetry makes nothing happen, but that's not true--I got cuts in the bathroom line. But it is a little odd. I feel that my food selections at the local health food store are scrutinized a little too seriously.
You can read the full interview with Kay Ryan here.
The Washington Post 
