ELEPHANT ROCKS - KAY RYAN

As is fairly clear from my EVERY BOOK REVIEWED project, I don’t read a ton of poetry. The last full book of poetry I read was back in July, and before that April. Even the Mary Karr book I read recently wasn’t poetry. Now, this is somewhat misleading since I read individual poems (magazines, online, etc.) not infrequently, and EVERY BOOK REVIEWED requires I read the entire book. But the point still stands, I’m not super plugged into poetry. I’m not even sure how I came across Ryan. I know I found the poem “Outsider Art” which ends with the wonderful lines: “We are not/ pleased the way we thought/ we would be pleased.” and heard that she eschews teaching at Ivy League schools, so I decided I liked her and wanted to read one of her books. I choose ELEPHANT ROCKS at random from the many books of her’s the library has and I read it all last night in one sitting before bed. The book is slender and the poems themselves are short and punchy. A sonnet stands out as on the longer end. And I’m very glad I got a whole chapbook, instead of scraping online for individual poems. It took me maybe 5-10 poems, read back to back, to really grok what Ryan is doing with rhythm and rhyme. For example, here’s a poem called SWEPT UP WHOLE in its entirety (italics in original):

You aren’t swept up whole, 

however it feels. You’re 

atomized. The wind passes.

You recongeal. It’s

a surprise.

Or this section of CRUSTACEAN ISLAND, my favorite of this collection:

It would not be sad like whales

with their immense and patient sieving

and the sobering modesty

of their general way of living.

Her work has more sing-song and unconventional rhyme schemes and a use of enjambment and varying line-lengths that, in my uncultured mind, recalls Lil’ Wayne, in the way that the length of line and the amount/placement of interior rhyme morphs across the poem. Poems in general are best read aloud, and these really benefit from annunciation, it highlights the twisty nature of the connections in the poems. There’s lots of animals and reworking clichés. There’s several passages about the color purple that I was into. There’s a particular poem called “Why isn’t it more marked up” which I found to be an interesting twist on pessimism. Anyway, as always, I should read more poems. 73 interior slant rhymes.