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Forward-looking poetry that pushes the limits of knowledge
In her latest collection, Rae Armantrout considers the shaping effects of language in the context of new and frightening global realities. Attempting to imagine the unimaginable and see the unseen, Armantrout evokes a "next life" beyond the current, and too often degraded, one. From the new physics to mortality, Armantrout engages with the half-seen and the half-believed. These poems step into the dance of consciousness and its perennial ghost partner—"to make the world up/of provisional pairs." At a time when our world is being progressively despoiled, Armantrout has emerged as one of our most important and articulate authors. These poems push against the limit of knowledge, that event-horizon, and into the echoes and phantasms beyond, calling us to look toward the "next life" and find it where we can.
Tease
Line
Reserved
Two, Three
As (2)
Blur
Close
Theory of Everything
Thing
Empty
The Subject
Units
A Distance
Cursive
The Ether
Agreement
Away
Reversible
Headline Song
Clear
Echo
Yonder
Us
Our Daphne
Visits
Parse
Soon
Framing
Short Story
Promise
Continuity
In Part
Pronouncements
Arrangements
Remote
Incorporation
Make It New
Some
Passing
Shine On
Again
Seed
Ins and Outs
Resting
State
Yoohoo
Propensity
Twizzle
Next Life
RAE ARMANTROUT is a professor of writing in the literature department at the University of California at San Diego, and the author of eight books of poetry, including Up to Speed (2003) and Veil: New and Selected Poems (2001).
"Armantrout... has been writing... poems for 30 years, at first for a West Coast cult following, now for what should be a national audience... [These] poems give... the invention, the wit and the force of a mind that contests all assumptions as much as it can."
~New York Times Book Review
""Armantrout's lines...should be read out loud, so that the dissonance that is her genius can make its meaning heard.""
~Library Journal
""These poems are bravely self-conscious, as much about the writing process as the end result. This volume examines and questions the components of poetry, and appropriate maneuver for a poet hailed as one of the pioneers of Language poetry... Two of Armantrout's previous books of poetry were finalists for the PEN USA Award in Poetry. Her work has also appeared in numerous anthologies. She is a role model for future poetry rebels, insisting that poetry as an art form is as alive as ever.""
~Foreword
""Armantrout... has been writing... poems for 30 years, at first for a West Coast cult following, now for what should be a national audience... [These] poems give... the invention, the wit and the force of a mind that contests all assumptions as much as it can.""
~New York Times Book Review
""Once associated with the controversial, difficult 1970s and '80s group called Language Poets, Armantrout has more recently emerged into sustained critical acclaim: this ninth book should see a breakthrough into wider attention... Now that American popular culture accommodates so much disjunction, self-reference and irony, this could be the year when more readers discover Armantrout, too.""
~Publishers Weekly, starred review
"These poems work as fiercely intelligent fragments of light, splinters of the highly polished mirror we call language. A truly philosophical poetry, playfully and painfully breaking the bland, received world into a field of brilliant and convincing shards."
~David Antin, author of i never knew what time it was
"Science and faith, mixed with an unusually solid take on popular culture, give these poems an uncanny insight into daily life. Both compassionate and relentlessly honest, Armantrout's work adds a window to the world; things are brighter for it, and easier to read.""
~Cole Swensen, Iowa Writers' Workshop
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