Elephant Rocks: Poems [Paperback]

Kay Ryan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 19, 1997

Elephant Rocks, Kay Ryan’s third book of verse, shows a virtuoso practitioner at the top of her form. Engaging and secretive, provocative and profound, Ryan’s poems have generated growing excitement with their appearances in The New Yorker and other leading periodicals. Sometimes gaudily ornamental, sometimes Shaker-plain, here is verse that is compact on the page and expansive in the mind.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Ryan's third book of poems, following Flamingo Watching (1994), is a meditation on a quirky, quixotic natural world full of animal-shaped rocks and other oddities ("There could be an island paradise/ where crustaceans prevail"). In a style characterized by formal elegance and extreme economy of language ("As some people age,/ they kinden"), Ryan's work is a unique blend of careful observation of the external world of sensation and a faithful documentation of the inner world of thought. Her work recalls Dickinson's in substance as in directness: "We know it is close/ to something lofty./ Simply getting over being sick/ or finding lost property." Although at times her terse, rhyming verses have the patness of nursery rhymes ("A thought is dumb,/ without eyes, ears,/ opposable thumb,/ or a tongue"), her best poems are resonant and memorable precisely because they are so compressed and because the images they contain are so insightfully and provocatively given: "The grains shall be collected/ from the thousand shores/ to which they found their way,/ and the boulder restored."
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Once an object or a word becomes familiar, it may be difficult to interpret it freshly. Ryan is remarkably dexterous at slanting the poetic light upon commonplaces to disclose previously unknown contours. Nothing is too prosaic for her, but she likes words best, for they are especially subject to a chemistry "which dissolves / or doubles / their strength." Her short lines and plain speech underline her researchlike diligence with a simplicity of statement that belies the depth of her poems, which is greater than a first glance sees, as when contemplation of the word crib leads to questioning of humanity's worthiness of the baby Jesus: "Note, for instance, in our / annual rehearsals of innocence, / the substitution of manger for crib--/ as if we ever deserved that baby, / or thought we did." Under Ryan's scrutiny, words definitely double their strength, and the ordinary dissolves. Elizabeth Millard --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 96 pages
• Publisher: Grove Press (August 19, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802135250
• ISBN-13: 978-0802135254
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #848,143 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Witty, Edgy, Beautiful, November 29, 1998

By 

Indienne - See all my reviews

This review is from: Elephant Rocks: Poems (Paperback)

I loved this book. Kay Ryan's poems are very short, but they pack so much ambiguous meaning in a few lines. They're quite unusual among contemporary poetry: epigrammatic, terse, very accessible, almost light verse, but with shadows flickering all around. I give this book to friends who say they "don't get modern poetry" and that modern poetry makes them feel stupid. If you like Stevie Smith or the short verses of Robert Frost, you'll love Elephant Rocks. Here's a short one, called "Silence":

Silence is not snow./ It cannot grow/ deeper. A thousand years/ of it are thinner/ than paper. so/ we must have it/ all wrong/ when we feel trapped/ like mastodons.

39 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Kay Ryan is the best poet now at work in America., May 26, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (Herhsey, PA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Elephant Rocks: Poems (Grove Press Poetry Series) (Hardcover)

Once every couple of generations, an original thinker manages to refresh an art form that had seemed exhausted. Kay Ryan has done this with poetry. Her poems rhyme--but not in the ways and places you expect. They're metrical--but only according to the author's own quirky standard. They're short, tight, and disciplined--and yet they allow language to sprawl and luxuriate. Best of all, they're musical. Not a single one of them bounces along in a stanzaic quatrain the way a traditional lyric would; instead, these poems are densely packed, with beautiful interior rhymes and echoes chiming away in a miniature space.

One final paradox: Although these poems are not confessional (they do not contain personal remembrances, hurts, or hopes), they gradually reveal an intensely individual mind--a lucid, generous, and humorous one.

In my opinion Kay is the best, most beautiful poet working in the English language today. She has quietly reinvented rhyming poetry according to her own peculiar--but very logical--rules. I consider her best poems to be miraculous.

In admiration,

Henry Rathvon

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Just Beautiful, November 2, 2006

By 

A. MacFarlane "MadMac10" (Burtonsville, MD United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Elephant Rocks: Poems (Grove Press Poetry Series) (Hardcover)

I had to stop reading this book on the bus because it caused me to blubber like a baby! Ms. Ryan's words pour into your soul like water, filling you up and spilling over your face. Seldom does a writer have such a command over both sound and sense--that's what makes her a true poet. And, like the best poetrty, this book should be enjoyed in a quiet, intimate environment, read aloud to the one you love best. An absolutely wonderful book.