Claire+Mills+-+Kay+Ryan

**Poem 1**

** A CAT/A FUTURE ** A cat can draw the blinds  behind her eyes  whenever she  decides. Nothing alters in the stare  <span class="italic" style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">itself but she's  <span style="background-color: #ffffff; display: block; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: left;"><span class="italic" style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">not there. Likewise <span style="background-color: #ffffff; display: block; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: left;"><span class="italic" style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">a future can occlude:  <span style="background-color: #ffffff; display: block; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: left;"><span class="italic" style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">still sitting there,  <span style="background-color: #ffffff; display: block; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: left;"><span class="italic" style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">doing nothing rude.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">I found this poem particularly intriguing for several reasons, namely, the imagery, diction, and structure.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">There were a few aspects of this poem's imagery that i enjoyed. First, this poem makes me think of [|this]. In this picture, a cat sits outside, closing its eyes. While nothing in its surroundings have changed, it has transcended into a completely different state of thought. Not only does this poem focus on the cat, it focuses on a part of the cat that very few people would think about- the inner part of a cat's eyelids. That specific part of the cat is the barrier that separates the cat's inner feelings from the rest of the world. This metaphor of the cat is a way for us to view our future. In this poem, Ryan personifies the future by saying it can "occlude," "sit," and do "nothing rude." Ryan says that our futures can functionally halt if we so desire. However, I think she is also saying that they may be unknown duality in the future. Just like the cat that can see something outside itself while not physically moving, we can decide for our future to change on the inside, and this change can be completely unknown to the outside world. This brings up two issues. First, Ryan criticizes that people are seen as too small or insignificant to care about. Second, because we are so small, we should not pretend that we are so important and that our needs should come before everyone else's.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">The next component of this poem I found fascinating was the diction. First, I found it interesting that Kay Ryan decided to give the cat a female gender while keeping the future neutral. Perhaps Ryan personally relates closer with the cat. Second, I found it interesting that Ryan describes the cat as drawing blinds by closing her eyelids. When I picture blinds closing, I generally think of curtains closing a window, which is much bigger than a cat's eye lids. This may have been done to illustrate how the cat's closing of her eyes is as big and significant as someone drawing the blinds to a window. Finally, I was taken aback by Ryan's use of the word "rude" in the last line. Is she hinting that one future is so insignificant to the whole that it couldn't possibly do anything too harmful? Or, she criticizing that thought? I lean more towards the assumption that she is criticizing.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Finally, I liked this poem's structure. The last word in each line brings suspense to an otherwise slow sounding poem. Also, the is a distinct shift in line six when we first see three accents in one line. Ryan very clearly emphasizes the contrast between our inner minds and the outside world in this line. Finally, I enjoyed how the short length of poem paralleled with how quickly one can draw the barrier between the inside and outside worlds.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">**Poem 2**

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">**THE NIAGARA RIVER**

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">As though <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">the river were <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">a floor, we position <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">our table and chairs <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">upon it, eat, and <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">have conversation. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">As it moves along, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">we notice — as <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">calmly as though <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">dining room paintings <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">were being replaced — <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">the changing scenes <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">along the shore. We <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">do know, we do <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">know this is the <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Niagara River, but <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">it is hard to remember <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">what that means.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">For this poem, I will focus on imagery, diction, and themes.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">When I first read this poem, the imagery is what struck me and stuck with me the most. Ryan creates the image in one's head of someone eating on a floating dinner room down the Niagara River. This image seems pretty strange and out of place. However, if you think about it, there are entire industries dedicated to dinning by/on the river. [|Here's] an image of a typical meal on the water. Ryan expresses people eating on a river as out of place to point out how unnatural such a phenomena is.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Ryan uses the word "floor" to compare a dinning room floor to the Niagara River. Ryan describes the floor as "calm." I visited the Niagara River several years ago and from personal experience, I can say that it is anything but calm. Ryan uses such diction to ironically illustrate how unreal and wrong it is for people to abuse nature. She paints the picture of the Niagara River as a sweet place for people to dine to point out how absurd such an act would be. Ryan also uses the words "paintings were being replaced" to illustrate how people take nature for granted. They do not appreciate it enough to watch one scene alone. We are convinced that something must always be happening or changing for us to be happy.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Through imagery and diction, Ryan reveals several themes. First, Ryan criticizes two aspects of human thought. One of these is fairly obvious- humanity's abuses towards nature. We cut down hundreds of forests to build homes. We harm a river's ecosystem by putting boats with harmful fuels on them so we can dine happily. Also, Ryan criticizes how humanity finds no wrongs in its actions. The last two lines of the poem reveal that people do not even understand the magnitude and importance of the Niagara River. They simply see it as something for them to extract and take apart for their own good. Second, Ryan reveals the duality of the Niagara River. It was named Ongniaahra, meaning point of land cut in two. This is physically true because the Niagara River borders both Canada and the United States. Ryan uses this particular river in her poem because it is also physically cut in two because of humanity's abuses towards it. It is not respected as it should be.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">**Poem 3**

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">**The Past**

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Sometimes there's <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">suddenly no way <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">to get from <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">one part to <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">another as though <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">the past were <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">a frozen lake <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">breaking up. But <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">not from the <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">top; not because <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">it's warmer <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">up here; it's not. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">But from underneath <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">for some reason- <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">perhaps some heat <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">trapped on its own <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">for so long it's <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">developed seasons.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">What stood out to me most about this poem was imagery, metaphorical diction, and syntax.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">The image I get from reading this poem is something like [|this]. I picture a person walking across a frozen lake and feeling the ice beneath him or her crack without seeing it crack until it's too late and they fall into the lake. There seems to be a dramatic contrast between hot and cold. The area around which the speaker or person in the poem's image is walking is cold while the water beneath him or her is quite warm. This is quite different than what we would normally expect. Generally, a frozen lake stays frozen because the cold water is trapped underneath a thick layer of ice. It only opens up when warm air above it has enough influence to break the thick layer of ice.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">I have come to notice that Ryan uses many metaphors in her poems to illustrate the meaning of the poem. In this poem, Ryan uses a frozen lake to symbolize the barrier between one's past and the present. The speaker or person mentioned in the poem has repressed his or her past to the point where memories are cracking through the barrier and starting to affect his or her present life. Perhaps previous bad memories have been triggered by something from the present.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">The syntax in this poem reminds me of the cracking frozen ice layer. In reading it aloud, the poem sounds very choppy. There is no normal rhyme scheme either. Also, the meter is quite irregular. This happening could be symbolic of the fact that one's past could break through to the present at any time. Our lives are unpredictable. Ryan's shortness of the poem is mostly likely symbolic of the short time it takes both for ice to break and for the past to break through to the present.

Poem 4

Green Hills

Their green flanks and swells are not flesh in any sense matching ours, we tell ourselves. Nor their green breast nor their green shoulder nor the languor of their rolling over.

I will also focus on imagery, metaphorical diction, and syntax for this poem as well.

As Ryan has done in all the poems on which I have focused, she focuses on some part of nature as the central theme of the poem here. In this poem, she focuses on rolling hills similar to [|these]. These hills are personified in the poem and their green skin, breasts, shoulders, and languor all appear to be different than peoples'. The speaker talks about these hills as if they are aliens to put them into perspective as different than what is normal or acceptable. Ryan wants to make the point that people judge everything foreign in a negative manner.

The idea of the green hills has two meanings. First, the speaker talks of the green hills as something to which he or she has no capacity of relating. People often refuse to talk to someone or go somewhere simply because of the outside shell. Ryan puts a new twist on the old cliche "don't judge a book by its cover." Also, Ryan criticizes the idea that nature is something disconnected and distant from humanity. She puts a sassy, satirical line on at the end of the poem, "nor/the languor of their/rolling over" to illustrate how obvious it is that rolling hills are not anything like people, which is how nature is supposed to be. Humans are not supposed to go into nature's processes and change how they operate, even though we often do.

Finally, Ryan uses the structure of the poem to illustrate how she feels about peoples' relationship with nature. The poem is quite short to symbolize how little people really care for nature. The poem, in contrast to many of Ryan's other poems, flows very fluidly. That can be paralleled to the rolling hills. Also, there is no real rhyme scheme to illustrate how nature does not have a specific beat and humanity should respect it as such.