vs.

Poetry. Finalist, Acorn-Plantos Award. VS. is a collection of poems chronicling a foray into the world of amateur boxing by a shy, bookish woman you'd never expect could hit someone in the face. Throughout these poems the author reflects on what it means to be a woman and a boxer, as well as a poet and a boxer. Part instruction manual, part rationalization, VS. is ultimately about the fights, both mental and physical, we all must confront.

Muhammad Ali, keep your guard up. You're being measured by a better boxing poet. Kerry Ryan has the clarity of vision that comes with a boxer's discipline and daring, the grace of a true poet's music of body and mind made one. -- Robert Kroetsch

The ultimate, to me, is to do more with less, as Winnipeg poet Kerry Ryan does with this book of verse, smartly titled VS...This narrative suite tells the story of how this poet...decides to step onto the canvas and how she deals with the decision -- physically and emotionally. Her ability to communicate both states at once is sharp...Like boxing in sport, poetry is the sweet science of literature. The mechanics are often invisible to us spectators, but that's okay. As Ryan demonstrates, there's much to describe and to discuss in terms of the action, the feelings one experiences, by witnessing someone render someone else stunned if not knocked out cold by fists alone. --The Telegraph- Journal

I rarely review poetry collections (simply because I feel inadequate while writing about them) but Kerry Ryan's VS. was a title I could not ignore. If I had my way, I would be standing on a street corner handing this to every teenage girl, especially those that walk hidden behind walls of hair, dressed in oversized sweatshirts and hunched under overpowering backpacks. I would be looking for the girls who don't want to be seen, so I could dare them to do what Ryan did and share in her personal bravery.--Bookslut