Things shouldn't be so hard.

The Niagara River

Kay Ryan

So I had this idea that, in honor of April being National Poetry Month, I would review a bunch of poems for you guys, and impress you all with how wonderfully intelligent, poignant and knowledgeable I am. It seemed like a great idea at the time. So I bought The Niagara River by Kay Ryan. She's the U.S. Poet Laureate. And I read it. And then I realized that though I have spent probably forty or fifty (credit) hours talking about poetry, the uses for it, the meaning behind it, and its acceptable forms, I have actually no idea how to review it.

I love poetry. I really do. In fact, I would go so far as to say it's one of my things. My things is poetry. When I was in like, fourth grade we all had to memorize a poem and declaim it in front of the class and I did Ozymandius by Percy Shelley. I adopted this deep voice for the words that on the pedestal appear: LOOK ON MY WORKS, YE MIGHTY, AND DESPAIR! I think I modeled it on James Earl Jones in those old ads, THIS....IS CNN. I actually am one of those (annoying) people who sometimes interject lines of verse into run-of-the-mill conversations. It doesn't really ever go like I expect, but still I persist in doing it:

Law school friend: I can't believe we're graduating in a month. It just really hit me, you know? In a month I won't be a law student anymore. I mean, I'm totally relieved, and if you made me stay another day I'd put a gun in my mouth, but I'm also...kind of sad, like. I keep thinking of the classes I didn't take. I should have taken Evidence. It'll be on the bar. I should have taken trial clinic. That would have been a great opportunity. I wish I'd done that. But like, I'm so glad I'll be out of here soon. You know what I mean?

Me: For I have had too much

Of apple-picking: I am overtired
Of the great harvest I myself desired.

Law School Friend: WTF?

Me: It's a poem. By Robert Frost. "After Apple-Picking."

Friend: I know.

Me: Oh.

Friend: I just mean, why are you talking about it now? That's weird.

So I am not unfamiliar with poetry and poems and poets and all that. But like: when I read books, I feel at home. When I read poems I know and love, I feel at home. When I read a new poet and their poems and I don't have a professor telling me what to think about it, I feel like I am visiting a hardware store. There are bright shiny things in barrels and they are interesting and I am curious but I do not know what they are for and I am afraid to touch, a little. So I have really no idea what to tell you about Kay Ryan's poems except that:

• They deal with nature and water a lot which probably has something to do with the circuity of life, human powerlessness in the face of death and time, themes of adaptability and positive reflections on that (go with the flow?), and an homogenization of the natural and artificial. I think.
• They are all very short, about one page. Except some are longer. The way these poems look made me think of William Carlos Williams and his prescription-pad poetry.
• Besides WCW, other poets I thought of when reading Ryan's works were Robert Frost, Elizabeth Bishop, and Mark Strand.
• I was relieved to find the poems rhyme, though I hate to admit it. I am a Philistine, I guess. Because when poems don't? I don't usually like them. And Ryan's rhymes are complex, her meter gunning like an engine. That was an added plus.
• But the rhyme is sometimes off. Or forced. One time, for instance, Ryan rhymes "flourishes" and "nourish us." "Routinely" and "Houdini." I am not a huge fan of that, unless your name is Emily Dickinson. Then you get a pass. When I was writing this entry in my head still with the goal of trying to impress you guys, I was going to say that this shows an easily facility and familiarity with language and playful spirit, like a little otter frolicking in the lake surf. But I mean, there was a part of me that was like OMG IT DOESN'T RHYME! THE RHYME!
• And sometimes, when it does rhyme correctly, the rhyme, or the idea of the poem? Seems a little facile. I mean, you read this:

No more water

for 80 miles

or gas or

beer. If you

need some

get it here.

And tell me if your first thought is not of Dr. Seuss. TELL ME. Seriously, and this is not hyperbole or poetic (hah) license at all, but at Easter my ten-year-old cousin sang me a jingle that she'd written for Total Wine (I know) that was remarkably similar: Spring has sprung/grass is riz/I know where the sweet wine is. Tooo-tal Wiiiiiine! (And more!)

Readers, I am fraud. I have read (and memorized) all five-hundred and sixty Sweet Valley High books. I can tell you exactly what outfits each of the Babysitter's Club members wore to the dance where Mary Anne Spier started dating Logan Bruno (from Luevulle, Kentucky!) Yet I have never read Proust. And I do not know if these poems are good or not. It could be like that scene in the Bill Murray movie Defending Your Life, where the rich snobby people eat actual shit to show that they are somehow risen intellectually above things like taste and enjoyment. Or they could be absolutely fucking brilliant. I do not know. I do not feel that I am qualified to say.

However, if reading fiction is like stepping through a door into a new world and seeing it through fresh eyes, I think poetry is more like flipping through a stranger's family photos. Most of them are just people, just sitting. But every now and again, you come across one that speaks to you. Fiction writers write to reintroduce you to your own world; poets write to introduce you to theirs. But occasionally, theirs and yours overlap, and you find that your own important business is smaller than you thought it was. It's humbling. Or else you find that--yes!--someone sees the world just as you do. And that's a comfort.

And there were times when reading Ryan's poems I felt that brief connection.

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.

And that's like coming home.

Rating: who knows? Let's say 3 of 5 stars. That sounds fair.