Sharks' Teeth
By: Kay Ryan
Kay Ryan
Kay Ryan is often compared to Emily Dickinson and Marianne Moore because of her "tightly compressed, rhythmically dense poetry". Ryan describes her poetry as starting "the way an oyster does, with an aggravation," instead of with imagery and sound. Being the recipient of several major awards, Ryan is known as one of the greatest living American poets.
Sharks' Teeth
By: Kay Ryan
Everything contains some
silence. Noise gets
its zest from the
small shark's-tooth
shaped fragments
of rest angled
in it. An hour
of city holds maybe
a minute of these
remnants of a time
when silence reigned,
compact and dangerous
as a shark. Sometimes
a bit of a tail
or fin can still
be sensed in parks.
Interpretation:
"Everything contains some silence."
- Interpretation: All things in the world have moments of quietude.
"Noise gets its zest from the small shark's-tooth shaped fragments of rest angled in it."
- Interpretation: Without silence, noise would be monotonous. The small breaks of silence within times of noise is what gives noise its energy.
" An hour of city holds maybe a minute of these remnants of a time when silence reigned, compact and dangerous as a shark."
- Interpretation: Silence comes in smaller amounts when compared to sound, and is often not recognized until it is upon a person, like a shark is undetected by its prey until it is overpowering them.
"Sometimes a bit of a tail or fin can still be sensed in parks.
- Interpretation: Silence still can be felt even when noise is resonating throughout the world.
Theme
The theme of Sharks' Teeth by Kay Ryan is how silence is still eminent in a fast paced world. Just like a shark, silence strikes in brief, faint intervals. Silence is what makes noise so refined; all noise, like music and speech, would be torture without breaks of silence.
Shark's Teeth