7 Poems

by Rae Armantrout

Genres: Poetry

12 pages, e-chap

First published January 1, 2004

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]

SIT-CALM

In the excitement phase
we think we want something
we;re made up to seem
exaggeratedly unfit for,
say, touch.

This is the funny part,
but also the dangerous 
moment. Right away
were talked out of it --
no harm done --
by a band of wise-acre friends.

"I don't know
what Im thinking," we say,
to a spike of merriment,
Here is the warm
human part
which dissipates tension



THING

We love our cat
for her self
regard is assiduous
and bland,

for she sits in the small
patch of sun on our rug
and licks her claws
from all angles

and it is far
superior
to "balanced reporting"

though, of course,
it is also
the very same thing.



THEORY OF EVERYTHING

It both hurtles
and fidgets,

otherwise
its empty space?

*

A wide swath
of baby-talk --

blue
and feathery green,
I insisted,

swinging up,

but Mother 
was no longer playing.

*

Everything that stays
once meaning has cleared out

is true?

*

Tomorrow
the sun eats the earth,

now

so many leaves are new,

not asking
to be recognized.



EMPTY

The present
must be kept empty
so that anything
can happen:

 The Queen of England visits
 Amanda's hot tub

 as a prophylaxis?

a discrepancy 
between ones view of things
and what comes to pass.

*

Its ironic when something
has a meaning to someone

 "Gotta go
 Gotta go
 Gotta go
 right now"

other than that
intended by the speaker.

 sings the bladder-control model
 from the fidgety TV
 above the dying woman's bed.

*

It's ironic when a set
contains no elements,

Of a person, frivolous.
Of a body, shrunken.



THE SUBJECT

It's as if we've just been turned human
in order to learn
that the beetle weve caught
and are now devouring
is our elder brother
and that we
are a young prince.

*

I was just going to click
on "Phoebe is changed
into a mermaid
tomorrow!" when suddenly
it all changed
into the image
of a Citizen watch.

*

If each moment is in love
with its image
in the mirror of
adjacent moments

(as if matter stuttered),

then, of course, we're restless!

"What is a surface?"
we ask,

trying to change the subject.



ONCE

1
Once there were people among whom
each one had to be convinced
she was the most wondrous alive
in order to go on living.
It was creation ex nihilo
all over again.
Crews were organized in shifts.
"Skin as white as snow
and hair as black as night," they chanted.
In off hours, everyone smirked
at the result
and called it sentimental.

2
At last the camp melodrama
of Dan Rather

relaxes

into the pseudo
siblings raillery
of the local newscast.

Since we're being escorted
from moment to moment

by what's already
familial,

we should be able
to follow this track
back

home
to our previous thought.

3
The opposite
of nothingness

is direction



BACK

The teacher said
two mirror images 

could come into being
by borrowing

from zero -- but only
if they agreed

to cancel one another out.

We followed
from inert matter

by offering
to eat each other up.

*

What sort of place is
existence
since we can "come into" it?

A point coincides;
it has no dimension.

Some say
matter's really energy

and energy is force
of law

and law is just
tautology.

*

We were taught

to have faces
by a face

looking "back"

Source: http://www.beardofbees.com/

[T. · Rating 4 out of 5]

from Back

What sort of place is
existence
since we can “come into” it?

A point coincides;
it has no dimension.

Some say
matter’s really energy

and energy is force
of law

and law is just
tautology.

*

We were taught

to have faces
by a face

looking “back”

[Omar Elsheikh]

We were taught
to have faces
by a face
looking "back"

[Talia · Rating 3 out of 5]

here is the warm human part
which dissipates tension