Veil: New and Selected Poems (Wesleyan Poetry Series) by Rae Armantrout

by Rae Armantrout

Excellent Book

Genres: Poetry, American

Paperback

First published January 1, 2008

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

[Jeff Jackson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not every poem landed for me, but there's lots of work here that's pure genius. Looking forward to a reread.
4.5 stars

[Jenni · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm extremely picky about the avante garde, but I like her work, and I think she's doing the most absorbing writing within that school of thought.

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Veil contains poems from not five but six of Armantrout's previous books ( Extremities , The Invention of Hunger , Precedence , Necromance , Made to Seem , and The Pretext ) as well as a generous selection of new poems (Veil). In addition, Veil contains a collaboration with Ron Silliman entitled "Engines"...

Extremities...

We know the story.

She turns
back to find her trail
devoured by birds.

The years; the
undergrowth

- Generation, pg. 5

* * *

A girl is running. Don't tell me
"She's running for her bus."

All that aside!

- Anti-Short Story, pg. 12

The Invention of Hunger...

1

Discomfort marks the boundary.

One early symptom was the boundary.

The invention of hunger.
"I could use energy."

To serve.

Elaborate systems in the service of
far-fetched demands.

The great termite mounds serve
as air-conditioners.

Temperature within must never vary
more than 2 degrees.


2

Which came first
the need of the system?

Systematic.
System player.
Scheme of Things.

The body considered as a functional unit.
"My system craves calcium."

An organized set of doctrines.

A network formed for the purpose of...

"All I want is you."


3

was narrowing their options to one,
the next development.

Soldiers have elongate heads and massive mandibles.
Squirtgun heads are found among fiercer species.
Since soldiers cannot feed themselves, each requires
a troupe of attendants.


4

Her demands had become more elaborate.

He must be blindfolded,
(Must break off his own wings)
wear this corset laced tight
(seal up the nuptual cell)
to attain his heart's desire.

Move only as she permits
(Mate the bloated queen each season)
or be hung from the rafters.
How did he get here?


5

Poor baby,
I heard your hammer.

The invention of pounding.

"As soon as it became important
that free energy be channeled."

Once you cared to be
set off
from the surrounding medium.

This order has been preferred
since improvement was discovered.

The moment one intends to grow
at the expense.

When teeth emerge

Demand for special treatment
was an early symptom

- Natural History, pg. 15-17

* * *

spider on the cold expanse
of glass, three stories high
rests intently
and so purely alone.

I'm not like that!

- Dusk, pg. 22

Precedence...

Man in
the eye clinic
rubbing his
eye -

too convincing. Like
memory.

My parents' neighbours' house,
backlit,
at the end of their street.

- Postcard, pg. 26

* * *

The dead boy
was found
clasping, "wrapped around"
a tree,
one chose in a
roiling wilderness,
the urgent dream
where love gives way to rescue.
Or rescue to love

- Precedence, pg. 36

"Engines" (with Ron Silliman)...

A herd of wild helicopters scud in the night. Syllables penetrate the red mulch of values, skeletons bloom at the read of the lab so recently repainted a pale green. Fingers curl slowly in sleep. The logic of ambition is to seem a straight line. In the butcher shops of the North End blood stains the flesh of skinned rabbits. Style is its own mark. Electrical storms in the skull cloud the eye. The volley maintained nears orgasm. Narcs prefer down vests, the low cut in the rear concealing both gun and handcuffs. The smell of curry in the corridor of the small hotel. You stand in the glass both, pretending conversation. Under the back stairs cobwebs define the spiders' hunt. The noise of the fan cooling the slide projector is punctuated with clicks. The cosmos is a purple flower.

Unable to reply, melodrama skips ahead. "I think something happens in the end." Her face, like her mother's, is tense. One death had sent an unidentifiable pulse of dread across three unborn generations. "How will I know when I make a mistake?" Pinpointing errors, I know where I am. A yellow "sea" or "field" or vinyl tufts. Glamour makes sense of the creature. So they laid her in a glass coffin. The spirits whom we call angels were never at any time or in any way darkness. The eucalyptus only seems to shrug. Light flicks over those leaves in complete silence. That is a slippery tongue. Do we suggest relations we aren't willing to declare?

For this paragraph, attach separate form 1040-ES. His face, like his mother's, was dense. Instinctively we crouched, disembarking the Sikorsky, darting swiftly in a bent-over manner beyond the wide sweep of the blade (which only became visible as it slowed to a stop). The red spot on the beak of the male gull is thought "beautiful." Her one idea provokes disaster. He came in behind. There are several ways in which this can be taken, but we prefer air freight. In a magazine, store ammo. The body distills poisons. Something longer and more languid perhaps, convoluted, looking simultaneously over its shoulder and between its legs, saddened by the very idea of girth, wearing a saxophone like a medal or sunglasses after dark. I chance this sentence at the point of max conflict. Thank you Saint Jude. Over several months he domesticated the rat, making a pet of it. Melodrama skips?

[...]

- Engines, pg. 41-42

Necromance...

Poppy under a young
pepper tree, she thinks.
The Siren always sings
like this. Morbid
glamour of the singular.
Emphasizing correct names
as if making amends.

Ideal
republic of the separate
dust motes
afloat in abeyance.
Here the sullen
come to see their grudge
as pose, modeling.

The flame trees tip themselves
with flame.
But in that land
men prized
virginity. She washed
dishes in a black liquid
with islands of froth -
and sang.

Couples lounge
in slim fenced yards
beside the roar
of a freeway. Huge pine
a quarter mile off
floats. Hard to say where
this occurs.

Third dingy
bird-of-paradise
from right. Emphatic
precision
is revealed as
hostility. It is
just a bit further.

The mermaid's
privacy

- Necromance, pg. 49-50

* * *

There were distinctive
dips and shivers
in the various foliage,
syncopated,
almost cadenced in the way
that once made him invent
"understanding."

*

Now the boss could say
"parameters"
and mean something
like "I'll pinch"

By repeating the gesture exactly
the woman awakened
an excited suspicion
in the infant.

When he awakened
she was just returning from
one of her little trips.

It's common to confuse
the distance
with flirtation:
that expectant solemnity
which seems to invite a kiss.

*

He stroked her carapace
with his claw.
They had developed a code
in which each word appeared to refer
to some abdicated function.

Thus, in a department store,
Petite Impressions might neighbour
Town Square.

But he exaggerated it
by mincing
words like "micturition,"
setting scenes
in which the dainty lover
would pretend to leave.

*

Was it sadness or fear?
He still wasn't back.
The act of identification,
she recognized,
was always a pleasure,
but this lasting difference
between sense and recognition
made her unhappy

or afraid.
Once she was rewarded
by the beams
of headlights flitting
in play.

- Language of Love, pg. 58-59

Made to Seem...

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.

- The Creation, pg. 67-68

* * *

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.

- Confidential, pg. 84-85

The Pretext...

1

With whom
do you leave yourself
during reveries?

The one making coffee
or doing the driving -

that is the real
person in your life.
Now that one is gone

or has tagged along with you
like a small child
behind Mother.

"No!" you explain
in the crowded aisle.

"Without articulation
there's no sense of place."


2

When I dreamed about flying
it was as a skill
I needed to regain.

I'd make practice runs
and float high
over the page. Pleasure

was a confirmation.
I remember the way
and I was right!

Still,
one should be patient

with the present
as if with a child.

To follow its prattle -
glitter on water -

indulgently
is only polite.

- Articulation, pg. 94-95

* * *

In my country
facts are dead children.

When I say "dissociation,"
I may have said "real-time action."

This is my given name:

Thirty-One Year Old
Prima-Gravida,

The Pokey-Puppy.

Words
can be repeated.

The Distractible Sparrow,
The Smallest District.

The Strictest District.

Astronomers know
a signal's
not an answer.

- Statement, pg. 112

Veil...

Bird calls rise
and drop
to an unseen floor.

The son pretends
to slip
and fall

into a wading
pool,

limbs frozen
akimbo,
eyes locked

on mother.
One person

stutters as a way of
insisting
on unconditional love

and one who hears
a busy signal
may ring again

in anger.
What if one pretends

to restrain another
while the other

seems
to rotate helplessly

faster and faster?

Each finds
his mate pre-

dictable

but believes his own
rigidity

must excite
his partner

- Theories, pg. 118-119

* * *

Card in pew pocket
announces,
"I am here."

I made only one statement
because of a bad winter.

Grease is the word; grease
is the way

I am feeling.
Real life emergencies or

flubbing behind the scenes.

As a child,
I was abandoned

in a story
made of trees.

Here's the small
gasp

of this clearing
come "upon" "again"

- The Way, pg. 125

* * *

A boy severs his fingers,
by accident, in my imagination

where his first thought is

"My mother
will be so frightened!"

*

Horn jags
from a stereo

as evasive
maneuvers:

extruded ink
jets, sea snakes

turn mouth-forward,
bodies snapping

as if

out of sight,
as if

*

over and over

were a scouting party
that arrives,

piecemeal,

in the third
person

- Piecemeal, pg. 128-129

* * *

The doll told me
to exist.

It said, "Hypnotize yourself."

It said time would be
transfixed.

*

Now the optimist

sees an oak
shiver

and a girl whiz by
on a bicycle

with a sense of pleasurable
suspense.

She budgets herself
with leafy

prestidigitation.

I too
am a segmentalist.

*

But I've dropped
more than an armful

of groceries or books

downstairs
into a train station.

An acquaintance says
she colours her hair

so people will help her
when this happens.

To refute her argument,
I must wake up

and remember my hair's
already dyed.

*

As a mentalist,
I must suffer

lapses

then repeat myself
in a blind trial.

I must write
punchlines only I
can hear

and only after
I've passed on

- Veil, pg. 131-133

* * *

"Who told you
you were visible?"

God said,

meaning naked
or powerless.

*

We had planned this meeting
in advance,

how we'd address each other,

how we'd stand
or kneel.

Thus our intentions
are different

from our bodies,
something extra,

though transparent
like a negligee.

*

Though a bit sketchy,

like this palm's
impression of a tree -

flashing scales,

on the point of
retraction.

But sweet.
You don't understand!

Like a lariat made of scalloped bricks

circling a patch
of grass

- The Plan, pg. 140-141

* * *

From the first
abstraction,

loss
is edible.

To think
is to filter

passers-by through your
semi-permeable membrane;

keep yourself
in circulation.

What is appetite
is a by-product?

If you pass through
zero,

you may see someone
you love.

Here's your mother
with her anxious grasp,

her clock-watching

- Purpose, pg. 147

[hjh · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Swollen kindness and cruelty could be seen from a great distance./ Children grew from our exaggerations” (35)

“Great numerical hysteria is numbed by words. The angel was not as we had expected, but moody and violent. Bats weep in the shadows of the foundry” (42)

“But this lasting difference/ between sense and recognition/ made her unhappy/ or afraid./ once she was rewarded/ by the beams/ of headlights flitting/ in play” (59)

“(Homeostasis/ means effortlessly/ pursuing someone/ who is just/ disappearing)” (78)

“We had planned this meeting/ in advance,/ how we’d address each other,/ how we’d stand/ or kneel./ Thus our intentions/ are different/ from our bodies,/something extra,/ though transparent/ like a negligee” (140)

“From the first/ abstraction,/ loss is edible” (147)

[Vincent Scarpa · Rating 4 out of 5]

“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.”—“The Creation”

“To come true,
a thing must come second.”—“The Creation”

“It is my responsibility
to squeeze
the present from the past
by demanding particulars.”—“My Problem”

“If I were dying in a hospital bed, would I get pencil and paper to jot down passing thoughts? Not likely. I, myself, was always a forwarding address.”—“Writing”

[CL Chu · Rating 3 out of 5]

My first encounter with Rae Armantrout. Most works in Veil are more anti-narrative and coded than delicate-wrapped emotions, and the nuanced implications within the raw momentum of her verses are remarkable. However, I probably need more experience in this "style" in order to fully appreciate it.

[Ross · Rating 4 out of 5]

The measure of fear is the distance between an event and its mental representation.

[Ben Schulte · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5*

[Daniel Klawitter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Extremely hermetic stuff. Some nice turns of phrase here and there....but largely the kind of poetry that makes general readers feel stupid because they just don't "get it." Which is not a sin in and of itself I suppose (for postmodern partisans it's often a virtue), but it's hard to figure out at times who Armantrout is writing for in terms of audience other than herself or other LANGUAGE poets. She is certainly capable of wonderfully concise word play that gives pleasure and at times is quite thought-provoking, but one wonders how many of these poems will survive sustained attention due to the weight of it's meandering poetics of nonreferentiality. Nevertheless, she remains a giant among the LANGUAGE school of poetics and is one of its more enjoyable practitioners.

[Antonia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just love Armantrout. She makes me think. I could read this book over and over. (I will!)

Here are just a couple of snippets. The poem "Generation" in its entirety:


Generation


We know the story.

She turns
back to find her trail
devoured by birds.

The years; the
undergrowth



The poem, "Overhearing," starts this way:
 
The way "The Tennessee Waltz"
is about having heard

"The Tennessee Waltz"
before:

an almost floral
nostalgia,

totally self
contained,

is what we call
beautiful.

[Anthony · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am most impressed (amazed, actually) by the economy of Armantrout's shortest poems. Let me show you one:
"GENERATION
We know the story.

She turns
back to find her trail
devoured by birds.

The years; the
undergrowth"

Her experiments with syntax intrigue me about as often as they annoy me. Her occasionally irregular punctuation tends to bug me; I actually tried to brush an unpaired parenthesis off the page because I thought it was one of my eyelashes!

[Teresa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like Armantrout and I’m slightly jealous of her recent Guggenheim but some of these poems felt like eating nothing but fresh veggies for days and days. I knew it was good for me but I wanted a little salt.

[Paul Killebrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Aloha, Fruity Pebbles!

[James Grinwis · Rating 5 out of 5]

For a long time, Armantrout has continually achieved the 'sublime' while bridging several different levels of poetic trend. Wonderful work.

[Al Filreis · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must-read for anyone who has even the slightest hankering for contemporary poetry and/or poetics.