It was announced this week that Kay Ryan, 62, has been chosen by the Library of Congress as the 16th Poet Laureate in the United States.

Though Ryan has aimed to live a fairly quiet life, her work has stepped ahead of her, garnering attention and, now, the most prestigious of honors. In her work, Ryan "enjoys re-examining the beauty of everyday phrases and mining the cracks in common human experience." She’s said that she doesn’t write in the first person because "the personal is too hot and sticky … I like the cooling properties of the impersonal."

Says John Barr, president of The Poetry Foundation: "Halfway into a Ryan poem, one is ready for either a joke or a profundity; typically it ends in both. Before we know it the poem arrives at some unexpected, deep insight that likely will alter forever the way we see that thing."

While teaching the same Remedial English class at the College of Marin in California for 30 years, Ryan has steadily kept at her writing for the past 20 years, gaining recognition in publications that include The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly and the New York Review of Books.

It was noted by Patricia Gray, coordinator of the Library’s Poetry and Literature Center that "although Ryan’s appointment as Laureate may disrupt her quiet life temporarily, her career path is likely to inspire poets everywhere who work independently, forgoing time-consuming career tracks and more remunerative positions so they can lead lives that nourish their writing."

wowOwow congratulates Kay Ryan on this tremendous achievement.

Click here to read Kay Ryan’s Turtle.

Click here to find out what poems and poets inspire Judith Martin, Liz Smith, Joan Juliet Buck, Joan Ganz Cooney, Sheila Nevins and Julia Reed.