In an anxious age, what’s the best place to look for consolation? I’d say “Look to the poets,” but not the writers who are typically offered up with inspiration in mind—Longfellow, Tennyson, Kipling and William Ernest Henley. If I never hear “If—” or “Invictus” again, I won’t be unhappy. Try instead a sojourn with the eccentrics, wizards of surprise, whose work offers a scintillating surface above a roiling undercurrent. Try Kay Ryan, a national treasure who turns 75 on Sept. 21, and who until quite recently was unknown,...

Source: Wall Street Journal September 18, 2020 22:07 UTC