American Life in Poetry: Column 108 BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006 Houdini never gets far from the news. There’s always a movie coming out, or a book, and every other magician has to face comparison to the legendary master. Here the California poet, Kay Ryan, encapsulates the man and says something wise about celebrity. Houdini Each escape involved some art, some hokum, and at least a brief incomprehensible exchange between the man and metal during which the chains were not so much broken as he and they blended. At the end of each such mix he had to extract himself. It was the hardest part to get right routinely: breaking back into the same Houdini. Poem copyright (c) 2004 by Kay Ryan, whose most recent book of poetry is "The Niagara River," Grove Press, 2005. Reprinted from "Poetry," November, 2004, with permission of the author. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.
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