Poetry News

Look, we don't know who's in charge of the EPA anymore, and apparently a lot of people don't even know that Dick Cheney is the VP (I read, in Newsweek or somewhere, that many American college students can't name the veeeep).

But we should still take note that there's a new poet laureate.

So without further ado, meet Kay Ryan, whom the New York Times says is "known for sly, compact poems that revel in wordplay and internal rhymes."

And a sample poem, courtesy of the New York Times, courtesy of Ms. Ryan's book, The Niagara River.

THINGS SHOULDN'T BE SO HARD
A life should leave

deep tracks:

ruts where she

went out and back

to get the mail

or move the hose

around the yard;

where she used to

stand before the sink,

a worn-out place;

beneath her hand

the china knobs

rubbed down to

white pastilles;

the switch she

used to feel for

in the dark

almost erased.

Her things should

keep her marks.

The passage

of a life should show;

it should abrade.

And when life stops,

a certain space—

however small —

should be left scarred

by the grand and

damaging parade.

Things shouldn't

be so hard.