Mom and dad named me Jordana Elana - 'tree' in Hebrew - and I love them for it. I take lofi photography, write prose and short fiction, watch film, and walk barefoot as much as possible.
Something about her resonates with me. The air fills with ease. Although I wouldn’t pin her as a hermit, I’m attracted to her shell – it’s the comfort of a sensible outsider.
Living in the same modest home in Fairfax she shared with her partner, Adair, for decades, she is now a widow. Perhaps it‘s the romanticism of the tragic poet; love lost and alone, she sits a recluse to the world scribing tears in a single room home shaded by shingles and tall trees.
She and Adair met while they both taught at San Quentin State Prison. Perhaps this is where she gets her humor. Why take privilege seriously after you’ve walked alongside disparateness with hands clasped? Adair was the one who encouraged her to release her reluctance and write.
She had failed. It wasn’t until she reached the age of 51 that her work began to receive recognition. She accepts this influx of accolades and acclaim with ownership and confidence that holds an air of skepticism over the entire thing.
Now with numerous works published, she was the 2004 recipient of the prestigious Guggenheim fellowship and received Poetry Magazine’s $100,000 Ruth Lily Prize. Kay Ryan is currently completing her second term as the current United States Poet Laureate (which she accepted…reluctantly). She uses this position as Poetry’s most respected ambassador as a platform to promote community colleges. But mostly she’s doing it due to Adair’s passing.
Winter Park, FL, a small city of affluence, peacocks, and a private college; the name alone denotes a pristine caricature of quaint simple living in the south. I sip wine and she sits as the Mayor gives an official proclamation ravaged by mispronunciations. He’s finished and I feel I should apologize to her… for everything. I try to offer her a swift return trip back to her cottage in the hills of Marin County with a simple request to be allowed to sit below at the base looking up through the shudders.
Rather, she blessed me with giggles and we wrapped scarves together. We posed in front of propaganda posters and tried our best to not laugh through low-pitched faux intellectual broodings.
I placed my glass on the floor and grabbed some melon balls – all had evolved to a level that was breathable without explanation.
Just
one free citizen
maybe not alive
now even-who
will know with
exquisite gloom
that only we two
ever found this room.
-Ideal Audience, Kay Ryan
