‘Some Transcendent Addiction to the Useless,’A Poem by Kay Ryan
by Kay Ryan
Mar 19, 2019
0 minutes
–George Steiner, The Poetry of Thought
Unlike the
work of
most people
you’re supposed
to unthread
the needle.
It will be
a lifetime
task, far
from simple:
the empty eye
achievable—
possibly—but
it’s going
to take
fake sewing
worthy of
Penelope.
originally appeared in Parnassus: Poetry in Review
__________________________________
From The Best American Poetry 2018, edited by Dana Gioia, series editor David Lehman. Copyright © 2019 by David Lehman. Reprinted by permission of Scribner, an Imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc.