The way an oyster does A Fragment by Kay Ryan www.csmonitor.com Her poems, [Kay Ryan] says, don't begin with a simple image or sound, but instead start "the way an oyster does, with an aggravation." An old saw may nudge her repeatedly, such as "It's always darkest before the dawn" or "Why did the chicken cross the road?" "I think, 'What about those chickens?' " she says, "and I start an investigation of what that means. Poets rehabilitate clichés." poetrymeaningcliché
Crown A Poem by Kay Ryan www.poetryfoundation.org Too much rain loosens trees. In the hills giant oaks fall upon their knees. You can touch parts you have no right to— places only birds should fly to. naturetreesmelancholytouch
Focal awareness The philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty describes what she experienced as "being as a thing." The philosopher Michael Polanyi calls it "focal awareness" and recurs to the act of hammering a nail: When we bring down the hammer we do not feel that its handle has struck our palm but that its head has struck the nail. We have become the things on which we are working. Richard Sennett, The Craftsman The inventive process was often a nonverbal oneHe feels the end of the cane identity