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Poet Laureate Kay Ryan Pushes Verse for Community Colleges

Posted by Mike Melia , October 22, 2009

Kay Ryan; photo by Christina Koci Hernandez Kay Ryan came into office as an "unlikely" poet laureate, she has said, living a quiet life in California, working away on her refined, compact verse. Now in her second term as the 16th U.S. poet laureate, she has decided on a project to share with the nation.

On Wednesday night in the Coolidge Auditorium at the Library of Congress, Ryan gave a reading of her work and announced a program designed to highlight poetry and poets at community colleges across the country. "I know great," Ryan said. "I do not know where great comes from."

This is a very personal project for Ryan, who will publish a new collection in March called "The Best of It." She attended community college at Antelope Valley College in Lancaster, Calif., and, until recently, taught remedial English for more than 30 years at community colleges around her home in Marin County.

The project is also a tribute to her longtime partner, Carol Adair, who died earlier this year from cancer and was a dedicated art teacher at community colleges. "She was obsessed with freeing people, being an agent of freedom," Ryan said. Once for recognition as teacher of the year, Adair received a whistle as an award. Ryan triumphantly blew that whistle Wednesday night to mark the start of the program.

The Community College Poetry Project is made up of three parts. National Poetry Day on Community College Campuses will be celebrated on the first day of April beginning next year and will include events, readings, and a conference call with Ryan. A Web page, "Poetry for the Mind's Joy," will launch early next year hosted by the Library of Congress' site. Lastly, colleges will submit their best work each year to feature on the site.

"I always think writers will come from the most unlikely sources," Ryan said in an interview. "Maybe that is because I was educated in a community college, I didn't look a bit promising and I got to be poet laureate of the United States."

Listen to the interview with Ryan:

For more about Ryan, visit our Poetry Series. Also, watch Jeffrey Brown's conversation with her from March.

Comments

Posted:
10/22/09 at
11:00 PM

Fergal O'Doherty : I'm delighted that a former community college student is now the poet laureate and that she is generously inviting instructors and students to read more poetry. The arts are sorely in need of promotion everywhere, not least at our community colleges.
Posted:
10/23/09 at
05:52 PM

Maria Miller : I taught at Jefferson Community College, Louisville, KY for over 20 years and frequently described my job as the best in the world. I am ever grateful to Kay Ryan for starting the Community College Poetry Project.
Posted:
10/24/09 at
12:22 PM

Louise DeSantis Deutsch : Thank you for showcasing poetry, poets, and the significance of the community college. As a community college educator for nearly 50 years, I know how creative and brilliant our students can be in the humanities, particularly in poetry and the visual arts. Thank you KAY RYAN for initiating your project--hope we hear more of it at Cape Cod Community College. Thank you SHERMAN ALEXIE for opening our eyes and spirit to tradition kept sparkingly alive.

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