Paige Ryan

@paigevryan.bsky.social

861 Followers 459 Following

Poet & hybrid-form enthusiast drawn to soft things with sharp edges: plants with inner lives, bodies that won’t behave, & the absurd comedy of daily life. Best of the Net–nominee. Poems in The Hopper, Tiny Seed Lit., Plants & Poetry, and elsewhere.

Picture of a page in a book that reads: They formed a group they named Common Ground and chose as their slogan "Solidarity not charity," a phrase inspired by the Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano's statement "I don't believe in charity. I believe in solidarity. Charity is so vertical. It goes from the top to the bottom. Solidarity is horizontal. It respects the other person. I have a lot to learn from other people."
A poem that reads: TO BE HEARD, ONE NEEDN'T MAKE A SOUND I am myself tree-like, the who of me a fist of wood and xylem. Did you know? If a girl falls in a forest and no one's around to hear it, her fingers pierce the soiled ground and keep growing. Years later, she's a woman [buried alive in dirt] and her favorite thing is to watch from her branches, the way the rain bleeds yellow with meadow pollen.
Photo of a portion of a book that reads: “The girl was haunted and withdrawn. Dora wanted only to be read stories. By four, she started to invent them. Suppose the moon went down into a mouse hole to have a look around. Suppose Gramma's false teeth fell into the telephone and came out the other end and bit your earlobe.” From “Playground” by Richard Powers.
A poem that reads: “THE AFTERMATH OF SCROLLING THE NEW YORK TIMES IN JANUARY (2025) I overdid it on the honey again this morning— first in tea, then on yogurt, followed by a long drawn out drizzle across the counter, my dogs heads, my head, a little in each shoe before leaving— and whatever was left of the bear, I took in my tote to go. My body, responding to a need for sweetness. My mind, letting it.”