Cultural Writing. Literary Criticism. Essays. These wide-ranging talks, essays, and interviews-beginning with "Why Don't Women Do Language-Oriented Writing?" and including "Feminist Poetics and the Meaning of Clarity," "Poetic Silence," and "Cosmology and Me"--are essential documents for understanding not only Rae Armantrout's poetry and poetics but her contribution to the development of language poetry in particular and contemporary poetry in general. Like her poetry, Armantrout's prose is marked by concision, a refreshing absence of jargon, and a quizzical mind that never rests easy. COLLECTED PROSE also features True, Armantrout's illuminating autobiography, which details her early years in San Diego and Berkeley.
Rae Armantrout is an American poet generally associated with the Language poets. Armantrout was born in Vallejo, California but grew up in San Diego. She has published ten books of poetry and has also been featured in a number of major anthologies. Armantrout currently teaches at the University of California, San Diego, where she is Professor of Poetry and Poetics.
On March 11, 2010, Armantrout was awarded the 2009 National Book Critics Circle Award for her book of poetry Versed published by the Wesleyan University Press, which had also been nominated for the National Book Award. The book later earned the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. Armantrout’s most recent collection, Money Shot, was published in February 2011. She is the recipient of numerous other awards for her poetry, including most recently an award in poetry from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts in 2007 and a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2008.