Poetry Precis 8- "Bad Day" by Kay Ryan

 In the poem "Bad Day", Kay Ryan uses a metaphor and a realistic tone to reveal how one's days may not always be easy or successful. "Not every day is a good day" is the first line of this poem which acts as a topic sentence, giving the reader an idea of the subject of this poem. In the next several lines, the speaker will develop a metaphor about a tailor that relates to something that all humans encounter.  While "Some days the stolen cloth reveals what it was made for" and the tailor has a clear cut idea about what he will craft, "some days neither the idea nor the material presents itself" and these are the times in which the tailor faces difficulty and a lack of creativity. In this metaphor, where the tailor is like any person, the "idea" represents an image or spark of creativity, while the "material" represents what is needed to carry out that vision in real life. In other words, often times not only do we not have a plan but we also do not have the resources to execute that plan. These kind of experiences are "the hard days for the tailor elf" as well as the hard days for us. This idea that sometimes we are unable come up with an idea as well as unable to accomplish that idea, is a message that Kay Ryan teaches the reader through the story of the tailor.