Ryan, Kay (1945-…), an American poet, was appointed poet laureate of the United States for 2008-2010. Ryan’s poems have been praised for their simplicity, insight, and accessible style for readers. Her poems typically are compact, with short lines and few syllables, filled with wordplay and internal rhymes. They generally deal with common things in sly, often humorous ways. Ryan has been compared to Emily Dickinson because of her illumination of everyday experience. Ryan won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for The Best of It: New and Selected Poems (2010), a large selection of previously published and new poems.
Kay Pedersen was born in San Jose on Sept. 21, 1945. She married Martin Ryan in 1968. She began writing poetry at the age of 19. Ryan received B.A. and M.A. degrees in English from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) in 1967 and 1968, respectively. She has taught at the College of Marin in California since 1971. Ryan’s poetry has been collected in Dragon Acts to Dragon Ends (1983), Strangely Marked Metal (1985), Flamingo Watching (1994), Elephant Rocks (1996), Say Uncle (2000), and The Niagara River (2005).
