Poetry for the Mind’s Joy

Recent US Poet Laureates have established projects related to poetry during their tenures. There’s Robert Pinsky’s Favorite Poem Project, Billy Collins’ Poetry 180 for high school students and Ted Kooser’s American Life in Poetry newspaper column. The current laureate, Kay Ryan, recently announced her own project that “embraces community colleges through an online poetry page Poetry for the Mind’s Joy and a poetry-writing contest.”

I simply want to celebrate the fact that right near your home, year in and year out, a community college is quietly—and with very little financial encouragement—saving lives and minds,” said Ryan. “I can’t think of a more efficient, hopeful or egalitarian machine, with the possible exception of the bicycle.”

Ryan added, “It is at a community college that a student can progress all the way from learning to read to learning to read poetry. That is, she can get the basic tools she must have to advance in the world and then go on and use them for the mind’s joy. This is a progression that improves both the student and her community every step of the way.”