A Justified Volume Title

As a reader, it is natural to come across the title poem in a collection and surmise an added significance, or a greater role within the volume. There is certainly no exception in Kay Ryan’s Niagara River, in which its namesake, “Niagara River,” also the first poem of the collection, sets the tone for the volume as a whole. Replete with sharp ironies, Ryan’s signature economical style, and an undeniable ecological overtone, “Niagara River” effectively sets the reader up for what is to follow in Ryan’s collection.

The first time I read Kay Ryan’s “Niagara River,” I couldn’t help but assume an ecological value to it:

As it moves along,

we notice—as

calmly as though

dining room paintings

were being replaced—

the changing scenes

along the shore.

On some level, the movement down the rapidly flowing river and the “changing scenes/along the shore” seem to allude to a changing or deteriorating environment. All the while, the first person “we” —a rarity in Ryan’s poetry, which will be addressed later—seem to be oblivious to the changes going on, and continue with their business. In “Green Hills,” Ryan utilizes the collective “we” once again, indicating a fault on the part of that “we” in failing to recognize the respect with which “Green Hills” deserve. In personifying the hills with “green/ breast,” “green shoulder,” and “the languor of their/ rolling over,” Ryan places a high value on land, which “we” continue to ignore.

The “we” found in both “Niagara Falls” and “Green Hills” is an irregularity in Ryan’s poetry. Typically, Ryan is able to come off as very personal in her poems without the use of personal pronouns. This is never more visible than in “Lighthouse Keeping,” In this poem, Ryan succinctly characterizes the poet-reader relationship:

Seas pleat

Winds keen

Fogs deepen

Ship lean no

Doubt, and

The lighthouse

Keeper keeps

A light for

Those left out.

It is intimate

And remote both

For the keeper

And those afloat.

The relationship between the poet and reader is indeed much like that of the lighthouse keeper and sailor, at once intimate and remote. The poet conveys personal feeling and expression, in turn eliciting emotion and expression from the reader, yet at a distance. In interviews, Ryan has admitted reluctance in using the “hot and sticky” ‘I.’ This poem not only follows her trend of avoiding ‘I,’ but, in an unusual metaphor, also explains the reason for this.

Kay Ryan’s poetry of course is no stranger to unusual metaphors. In “Niagara River” Ryan likens the scenery of the river to a dining room, as she and her friends “position/ our table and chairs/upon it, eat and/have conversation.” The paradox of casual conversation while traveling down the river is an interesting one, and calls to mind those who are both unwilling to adapt to the changes around them and oblivious of the future:

. We

Do know, we do

Know this is the

Niagara River, but

It is hard to remember

What that means.

Of course, one cannot proceed down the Niagara River without eventually encountering the Niagara Falls, a formidable danger to be sure. Ryan is able to conjure the image of this massive and powerful waterfall without mentioning the falls themselves.

Ryan’s “The Best of It,” exhibits the same type of clever word play. In just thirteen lines, each line being no more than four words each, Ryan is able manipulate the space imagined in the mind of the reader, going from an acre of land to a single bean. “However carved up/ or pared down we get/ we keep on making/ the best of it,” Ryan writes in this poem. This line conveys the optimistic attitude of the speaker, who appears to be under financial duress. It also speaks volumes for Ryan’s frugality as a poet: in spite of her brevity, meaning and emotion is not lost in her poetry, and no word is undervalued.