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Inprint Brown Reading Series: Kay Ryan

Presented by Inprint at Alley Theatre -- Patricia Peckinpaugh Hubbard Stage

April 11, 2011

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Welcome to the 30th anniversary season of the Inprint Margarett Root Brown Reading Series, considered one of the nation’s leading literary programs. Over the years, the Series has presented more than 300 of the world's great writers, including winners of five Nobel Prizes, 49 Pulitzer Prizes, 45 National Book Awards, and seven Booker Prize winners, as well as 13 U. S. Poet Laureates.

The 2010/2011 lineup continues the trend of literary greatness, presenting nine of the best contemporary writers. The season runs from September to April and consists of seven evenings, each beginning with a reading by one or two of the featured writers, followed by an on-stage interview conducted by a local writer or scholar. The evenings conclude with a book sale and signing, where audience members can meet the authors. All readings take place in Downtown Houston’s Theater District and begin at 7:30 pm.

Monday, April 11, 2011, on the Hubbard Stage, Alley Theatre, the Inprint Brown Reading Series presents Kay Ryan.

KAY RYAN’S poetry has been compared to Fabergé eggs—“tiny, ingenious devices that inevitably conceal some hidden wonder” (Salon.com). Sixteenth Poet Laureate of the United States, Ryan self-published her first book of poetry, Dragon Acts to Dragon Ends, and since then, has won many major awards, including the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, three Pushcart Prizes, and four appearances in Best American Poetry anthologies. Kirkus Reviews describes Ryan’s work as “Full-brained poems in a largely half-brained world.”

For more than 30 years, Ryan taught remedial English at a junior college in California, and as Poet Laureate, she launched “Poetry for the Mind’s Joy,” an initiative which draws national attention to the important work of community colleges as well as drawing the colleges’ attention to poetry.

Ryan’s other collections include The Niagara River, Say Uncle, Elephant Rocks, Strangely Marked Metal, and Flamingo Watching, which was a finalist for both the Lamont Poetry Selection and the Lenore Marshall Prize. Publishers Weekly says of her latest book of poetry, The Best of It, “Her tiny, skinny poems pack a punch unlike anything else in contemporary poetry, though not unlike haiku, if haiku could be cut with a dash of Groucho Marx,” and the Los Angeles Times says the book “reveals that right before our eyes Ryan has become a classic American poet….Spending time with this book can alter the mind.”