Made to Seem

by Rae Armantrout

Book by Armantrout, Rae

Genres: Poetry

64 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1995

About the author

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.

Reviews

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Along with a selection of poems from Armantrout's previously published collections, Made to Seem includes several new poems...

The Creation


Impressions
bribe or threaten
in order to live.

Retreating palisades
offer
a lasting
previousness.

*

Let us
move fast
enough, in a small
enough space, and
our travels
will take first
shape, then substance.

*

In the beginning
there was measurement.

How much
does self-scrutiny
resemble mother-touch?

*

Die Mommy scum!

To come true,
a thing must come second.

* * *

Covers


The man
slapped her bottom
like a man did
in a video,

then he waited
as if for shadow
to completely cover the sun.

Moments later
archaeologists found him.

*

The idea that they were reenacting something which has been staged in the first place bothered her. If she wanted to go on, she'd need to ignore this limp chronology. She assumed he was conscious of the same constraint. She assumed he was conscious of the same constraint. But she almost always did want to proceed. Procedure! If only either one of them believed in the spontaneity of the original actors and could identify with one. Be one. For this to work, she reasoned, one of us would have to be gone.

*

"Well, look who missed
the fleeting moment,"

Green Giant gloats
over dazed children.

If to transpose
is to know,

we can cover our losses.

But only
If talking,

Formerly food,

Now meant
Not now

So recovery
Ran rings.

If to traverse
is to envelop,

I am held
and sung to sleep.

* * *

My Problem


It is my responsibility
to squeeze
the present from the past
by demanding particulars.

When the dog is used
to represent the inner
man, I need to ask,
"What king of dog is it?"

If a parasitic
metaphor grows all
throughout - good!
Why stop with a barnacle?

A honeysuckle,
thrown like an arm
around a chain-link fence,
would be far more

articulated,
more precisely repetitive,
giving me the feeling
that I can go on like this

while the woman
at the next table says,
"You smell pretty,"

and sends her small daughter's
laugh, a spluttery orgasm,
into my ear -
though this may not have been
what you intended.

It may not be a problem
when I notice
the way the person shifts.

*

A Pulse


Find the place
in silence
that is a person

or like a person
or like not
needing a person.

*

After the heart attack
she fills her apartment
with designer accents -

piece by piece.

*

This is a bed,
an abiding
at least,

close to lastly
but nicer.

*

Light changes:

Separation
anxiety refers
to this

as next
tears itself off.

*

A hospital calendar
shows the sun going down
on an old-time,
round, lime-green
diner.

*

Just a quick trip back
to mark the spot
where things stop
looking familiar

* * *

Native


How many constants should there be?

The slick wall of teeth?

The white stucco
at the corner,

flag on its porch
loosely snapping?

*

"Get to the point!"

as if before dark -

as if to some bench
near a four-way stop.

*

At what point does
dead reckoning's

net
replace the nest

and the body
of a parent?

*

The apparent
present.

Here eucalyptus
leaves dandle,
redundant but syncopated.

* * *

Crossing


1

We'll be careful.

Repression informs us
that this is not our father.

We distinguish
to penetrate.

We grow and grow,

fields of lilies,
cold funnels.


2

According to legend
Mom
sustains the universe
by yelling
"Stay there
where it's safe"
when every star
wants to run home
to her.

Now every single star
knows
she wants only
what's best
and winks steadily
to show it will obey,
and this winking
feels like the middle
of an interesting story.

This is where
our history begins.
Well, perhaps not
history, but we do
feel ourselves preceded.
(Homeostatis
means effortlessly
pursuing someone
who is just
disappearing.)


3

Now here it is
slowed down
by the introduction
of nouns

Eastwood, Wayne
and Bogart:

faces
on a wall in Yuma

constitute
the force required
to resurrect
a sense of place.

(Hunger fits
like a bonnet
now, something
to distinguish.)


4

On the spot, our son
prefaced resorption, saying,

"You know how we're a lot alike..."

He couldn't go out
on that day, but
he could have a pickle.

Out of spite, he crawled
to the kitchen, demonstrating
the mechanics of desire.


5

The sky darkened
then. It seemed
like the wrong end
of a weak simile.
That was what shocked us.
None of our cries
had been heard,
but his was.
When something has happened
once, you might say
it's happened, "once and
for all." That's what
symbols mean
an why they're used
to cover up envy.

* * *

A Story


Despite our infractions
we are loved
by the good mother
who speaks carefully:

"I love you, but I don't
like the way you lie there
pinching your nipples
while I'm trying to ready you a story."

Once there was an old lady who told her son she
must go tot he doctor because she was bleeding
down there. She didn't look alarmed, bu suppressed
a smile, as if she were "tickled," as if she were
going to get away with something.

"Look," said the doctor, "you are confusing
infraction with profusion. Despite
may be divided into two
equal segments: Exceptional and Spiteful."

But the stubborn old woman just answered,
"When names perform a function,
that's fiction."

* * *

Visibility

1

I have to go for a check-up. In the examining room I'm surrounded by windows looking out on busy streets. The doctor assures me these are on-way. In the dream, it is attractive to be deceived.


2

Because of his name, I'm afraid this doctor's silences won't be well-modulated. Motivated? The invisible barricades won't be in the right places, and I won't be able to maneuver around them, neatly, in the roadster I don't have - which is supposed to be funny!


3

It's strange to see traffic backed up at this checkpoint - people scattering - heading for the hills or darting across the freeway toward the beach. There are words connected with this scene. "Aliens" is one. If I can avoid these words, what remains should be my experience.

* * *

The Daffodils


Upon that inward eye

A wig and eyelashes
made of pipecleaners

affixed
to a rear view mirror

which says,
"Flapdoodle!"

In a common sense, country way
that just reflects

The bliss of solitude

and baby shoes
attached by a red tube

to the small plastic
blades of a "chopper":

this never-ending lineup
of spontaneous abortions

could have begun
as a singing crab

whose embarrassment
when brought before the king

was one way
to placate matter.

* * *

Confidential


Shooting pleasures
Ok'd by
My being seen
For
Or as
If.

*

Not just light
at the end of the tunnel,

bu hearts, bows, rainbows -

all the stickers
teachers award is pleased.

*

Pigeons bathe in technicolour
fluid "of a morning."

*

If I was banging
my head with a shoe,
I was just exaggerating -

like raiding my voice
or the ante.

Curlicues
on iron gratings:

Can it be
a flourish is a grimace,
bu a grimace isn't a flourish?

*

On the inscribed surface
of sleep.

Almost constant
bird surroundings.

"Aloha, Fruity Pebbles!"

Music, useful
for abstracting emphasis.

Sweet nothing
to do with me.

* * *

Leaving


The urge to wander is
displayed
in a spate of slick,
heart-shaped leaves.

*

Cellophane grass and
foil eggs.

The modesty

of standard presentation
does remind me of home
sickness.

*

As if some furtive
will's receded
leaving meaning
in its place:

A row of coastal
chalets

*

With waves
shine slides over
shine like skin's
what sections
same from same.

*

Coarse splay
of bamboo
from the gullies,
I write,
as if I'd been expecting
folds of lace.

*

Mine was about
escaping Death though
Death was stylized, somehow,
even stylish. So was I!
So I was hidden
among fashionable allies.

[Grace Watson]

Made to Seem carries an easier, lighter tone than Rae Armantrout's most recent book "Versed". Armantrout appears to be journeying through her own understanding of language. I found the line "It's the job of the poem to find homes for all these noises," to encapsulate a lot of what this book was traveling through. It reiterates her usual terse, compressed lines and stanzas. Usual themes of language, the present tense, and ontology can be found throughout.

Published in 1995, it

[Steven Godin · Rating 4 out of 5]

The man
slapped her bottom
like a man did
in a video,

then he waited
as if for shadow
to completely cover the sun,

Moments later
archaeologists found him.