Events & Calendars Kay Ryan Reading and "Tell it Slant" Award Presentation

Kay Ryan, not unlike Emily Dickinson, has lived largely outside the poetry world, pursuing her writing while teaching part-time at the College of Marin, a community college in California. Ryan's work was little noticed until 1999, but just five years later she received both the coveted Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Her most recent accolades include a Pulitzer Prize and a "Genius" Award from the MacArthur Foundation. Ryan was the Poet Laureate of the United States from 2008 to 2010.

The "Tell it Slant" Award has been created to honor individuals whose work, in any field, is imbued with the creative spirit of America’s greatest poet, Emily Dickinson. The award, which will be given to Ryan on Thursday, has been made by internationally recognized glass artist Josh Simpson from a piece of New Mexico blue glass. The manuscript version of Dickinson's "Tell all the Truth but tell it slant" poem has been reproduced in Dickinson’s hand on the glass through a resist process by stained-glass artist Dave Zaltzberg.