Age, Biography and Wiki

Kay Ryan was born on 21 September, 1945 in San Jose, California, U.S., is an American poet. Discover Kay Ryan's Biography, Age, Height, Physical Stats, Dating/Affairs, Family and career updates. Learn How rich is she in this year and how she spends money? Also learn how she earned most of networth at the age of 78 years old?

Popular As N/A
Occupation Poet, educator
Age 78 years old
Zodiac Sign Virgo
Born 21 September 1945
Birthday 21 September
Birthplace San Jose, California, U.S.
Nationality United States

We recommend you to check the complete list of Famous People born on 21 September. She is a member of famous poet with the age 78 years old group.

Kay Ryan Height, Weight & Measurements

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Dating & Relationship status

She is currently single. She is not dating anyone. We don't have much information about She's past relationship and any previous engaged. According to our Database, She has no children.

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Kay Ryan Net Worth

Her net worth has been growing significantly in 2023-2024. So, how much is Kay Ryan worth at the age of 78 years old? Kay Ryan’s income source is mostly from being a successful poet. She is from United States. We have estimated Kay Ryan's net worth, money, salary, income, and assets.

Net Worth in 2024 $1 Million - $5 Million
Salary in 2024 Under Review
Net Worth in 2023 Pending
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Timeline

1945

Kay Ryan (born September 21, 1945) is an American poet and educator.

She has published seven volumes of poetry and an anthology of selected and new poems.

1971

Since 1971, she has lived in Marin County, California, and has taught English part-time at the College of Marin in Kentfield.

1978

Carol Adair, who was also an instructor at the College of Marin, was Ryan's partner from 1978 until Adair's death in 2009.

1983

Her first collection, Dragon Acts to Dragon Ends, was privately published in 1983 with the help of friends.

1985

While she found a commercial publisher for her second collection, Strangely Marked Metal (1985), her work went nearly unrecognized until the mid-1990s, when some of her poems were anthologized and the first reviews in national journals were published.

1988

Some of these disjoint qualities in her work are illustrated by her poem "Outsider Art", which Harold Bloom selected for the anthology The Best of the Best American Poetry 1988–1997.

Ryan is also known for her extensive use of internal rhyme.

She refers to her specific methods of using internal rhyme as "recombinant rhyme."

She claims that she had a hard time "tak[ing] end-rhyme seriously," and uses recombinant rhyme to bring structure and form to her work.

As for other types of form, Ryan claims that she cannot use them, stating that it is "like wearing the wrong clothes."

1995

Ryan's awards include a 1995 award from the Ingram Merrill Foundation,

1997

Thus, Katha Pollitt wrote that Ryan's fourth collection, Elephant Rocks (1997), is "Stevie Smith rewritten by William Blake" but that Say Uncle (2000) "is like a poetical offspring of George Herbert and the British comic poet Wendy Cope."

2000

Another reviewer of Say Uncle (2000) wrote of Ryan, "Her casual manner and nods to the wisdom tradition might endear her to fans of A. R. Ammons or link her distantly to Emily Dickinson. But her tight structures, odd rhymes and ethical judgments place her more firmly in the tradition of Marianne Moore and, latterly, Amy Clampitt."

Ryan's wit, quirkiness, and slyness are often noted by reviewers of her poetry, but Jack Foley emphasizes her essential seriousness.

In his review of Say Uncle he writes, "There is, in short, far more darkness than 'light' in this brilliant, limited volume. Kay Ryan is a serious poet writing serious poems, and she resides on a serious planet (a word she rhymes with 'had it'). Ryan can certainly be funny, but it is rarely without a sting."

the 2000 Union League Poetry Prize,

2001

the 2001 Maurice English Poetry Award for her collection Say Uncle,

a fellowship in 2001 from the National Endowment for the Arts, a 2004 Guggenheim Fellowship, and the 2004 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize.

Her poems have been included in three Pushcart Prize anthologies,

2003

J. D. McClatchy included Ryan in his 2003 anthology of contemporary American poetry.

He wrote in his introduction, "Her poems are compact, exhilarating, strange affairs, like Satie miniatures or Cornell boxes. … There are poets who start with lived life, still damp with sorrow or uncertainty, and lead it towards ideas about life. And there are poets who begin with ideas and draw life in towards their speculations. Marianne Moore and May Swenson were this latter sort of artist; so is Kay Ryan."

Ryan's poems are often quite short.

In one of the first essays on Ryan, Dana Gioia wrote about this aspect of her poetry.

"Ryan reminds us of the suggestive power of poetry–how it elicits and rewards the reader’s intellect, imagination, and emotions. I like to think that Ryan’s magnificently compressed poetry – along with the emergence of other new masters of the short poem like Timothy Murphy and H.L. Hix and the veteran maestri like Ted Kooser and Dick Davis – signals a return to concision and intensity."

Ryan tends to avoid using the personal "I" in her poetry, claiming that she "didn’t want confession. [She] didn’t want to be Anne Sexton."

Though distanced, her work is often deeply introspective, analyzing both the nature of the mind and the ability of language to mold reality.

Many reviewers have noted an affinity between Ryan's poetry and Marianne Moore's.

In addition to the oft-remarked affinity with Moore, affinities with poets May Swenson, Stevie Smith, Emily Dickinson, Wendy Cope, and Amy Clampitt have been noted by some critics.

2004

She became widely recognized following her receipt of the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize in 2004, and published her sixth collection of poetry, The Niagara River, in 2005.

2008

From 2008 to 2010 she was the sixteenth United States Poet Laureate.

In July 2008, the U.S. Library of Congress announced that Ryan would be the sixteenth United States Poet Laureate for a one-year term commencing in Autumn 2008.

She succeeded Charles Simic.

2009

In April 2009, the Library announced that Ryan would serve a second one-year term extending through May 2010.

2010

She was succeeded by W.S. Merwin in June 2010.

She is a lesbian, and was the first openly lesbian United States Poet Laureate.

The Poetry Foundation's website characterizes Ryan's poems as follows: "Like Emily Dickinson and Marianne Moore before her, Ryan delights in quirks of logic and language and teases poetry out of the most unlikely places. She regards the 'rehabilitation of clichés,' for instance, as part of the poet’s mission. Characterized by subtle, surprising rhymes and nimble rhythms, her compact poems are charged with sly wit and off-beat wisdom."

2011

In 2011 she was named a MacArthur Fellow and she won the Pulitzer Prize.

Ryan was born in San Jose, California, and was raised in several areas of the San Joaquin Valley and the Mojave Desert.

After attending Antelope Valley College, she received bachelor's and master's degrees in English from University of California, Los Angeles.