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Column 391

Pinhole

Intro by Ted Kooser
09.16.2012

Kay Ryan was our nation’s Poet Lau­re­ate at The Library of Con­gress for the 2008 – 2010 terms. Her poet­ry is cel­e­brat­ed for its com­pres­sion; she can get a great deal into a few words. Here’s an exam­ple of a poem swift and accu­rate as a dart.

Pinhole

We say
pinhole.
A pin hole
of light. We
can’t imagine
how bright
more of it
could be,
the way
this much
defeats night.
It almost
isn’t fair,
whoever
poked this,
with such
a small act
to vanquish
blackness.
 

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Disclaimer

We do not accept unsolicited submissions

We do not accept unsolicited submissions. American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2011 by Kay Ryan, whose most recent book of poems is Odd Blocks, Selected and New Poems, Carcanet Press, 2011. Poem reprinted from Poetry, October 2011, by permission of Kay Ryan and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2024 by The Poetry Foundation.