The Library of Congress announced on Thursday that California poet Kay Ryan will serve as the 16th U.S. Poet Laureate, succeeding New England poet Charles Simic.
Ryan was born in California in 1945 and grew up in the small towns of the San Joaquin Valley and the Mojave Desert. She received both a bachelor's and master's degree from UCLA.
Ryan's awards include the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, a Guggenheim fellowship, an Ingram Merrill Award, a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Union League Poetry Prize, the Maurice English Poetry Award, and three Pushcart Prizes. Her work has been selected four times for The Best American Poetry and was included in The Best of the Best American Poetry 1988-1997.
Since 1971, she has lived in Marin County in California. She has taught the same remedial English course at the College of Marin in Kentfield, for more than 30 years.
(Thanks to Guy Lebeda of the Utah Arts Council for forwarding this announcement.)
