And the honor goes to Kay Ryan, UCLA alumna and winner of the 1994 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, worth $100,000. The New York Times has posted some of Ryan’s brief but bold poems. In the Times interview, Ryan says she never wanted to be a poet, never wanted the recognition that sometimes accompanies it.
But in the end “I couldn’t resist,” she said. “It was in a strange way taking over my mind. My mind was on its own finding things and rhyming things. I was getting diseased.”
I hadn’t heard of her, but that makes it exciting. We will all be familiar with her work before too long.