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Wobble
Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Rae Armantrout is at once a most intimate and coolly calculating poet. If anyone could produce a hybrid of Charlie Chaplin's playful "Little Tramp" and Charlize Theron's fierce "Imperator Furiosa," it would be Armantrout. Her language is unexpected yet exact, playing off the collective sense that the shifting ground of daily reality may be a warning of imminent systemic collapse. While there are glimmers here of what remains of "the natural world," the poet confesses the human failings, personal and societal, that have led to its devastation. No one's senses are more acutely attuned than Armantrout's, which makes her an exceptional observer and reporter of our faults. She leaves us wondering if the American Dream may be a nightmare from which we can't awaken. Sometimes funny, sometimes alarming, the poems in Wobble play peek-a-boo with doom.
- GenresPoetryNonfiction
160 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 10, 2018
18 people are currently reading
263 people want to read
About the author
Rae Armantrout
75 books108 followersRae 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 37 reviews
November 9, 2018
The title and cover image for this NBA shortlisted poetry collection perfectly describes the message in these poems. Armantrout sees that we are wobbling on an edge and could easily tip into calamity - environmental calamity, political and social calamity, a calamity of the soul. These poems are short bursts of thought and the structure helps convey the urgency. That being said, I did not feel that these poems had as much of an emotional effect on me as others on the shortlist.
February 1, 2023
I just love Rae Armantrout so much.
Read
January 2, 2020The title word, wobble, tips the reader off balance toward cognizing the active relational spaces between the one to three poems gathered under each title. Most of Armantrout's short poems with short lines are comprised of shorter unnumbered poems. Why characterise that relational space as wobbly: primarily, because that relationality exists not in the precise language of the poems as such, but in the "extralinguistic" space between the poems, and in the reader's efforts to connect poems together as demanded by shared title. The nature of this connectivity is as diverse as the lyric poet can conceive it in the world: metonymically, metaphorically, etc.
It's wrong, I think, to call each poem a "section" or "part" of a larger poem. And their interrelation bears no hieroglyphic stamp of "the serial poem"'s mystifications. Each poem exists "in its own right," and presents, furthermore, a consistent, coherent narrative, direct and ordinary. But then the one poem is juxtaposed on the page with one or two other poems, divided each from each most often by way of an enlarged tilden, but then united under a single title. Getting from one of these poems to another requires a figurational leap.
A standing back. - That is the idea, with an Armantrout poem. Taking a mental step back that is predominanty a spatializing step, in order to perceive from that refocused distance the inter-poem connections. Step out of the one poem-section and into the next, then out of them both so as to search for their connecting pathways.
This active relationality is not the subjectively arbitrary devising of a reader floating in free mental space, musing to herself. The poem-juxtapositions are deliberate. They are carefully - pointedly, even plottedly - constructed. They are meant to elicit the recognizable experience and the unforeseen connection, but with two provisos; that:
and that:
This mimickry not only allows for unforeseen connections between poems - in that, a relation between one poem and another requires "mimickry" of some sort - but the mimickry observed here exists also to be read as a self-conscious admission - about object relations - evoked on a completely different scale: in Wobble, the poet gives us a heightened "late sense" of America in the world.
The unforeseen connections, in other words, are specific to American life. That is to say, not "America" in some enlargening, expansive sense of a possible world, as some of us may have imagined it in the nineties (me included), but in today's realizing of nation-stateness increasingly perceivable as "unforeseen" perhaps only on the other side of the current walls surrounding it. The having it and getting it down (see poem above) applies also to "America." From outside America, America as: a known quantiy.
A standing back, a mental step back, in another sense, then, as well.
It's wrong, I think, to call each poem a "section" or "part" of a larger poem. And their interrelation bears no hieroglyphic stamp of "the serial poem"'s mystifications. Each poem exists "in its own right," and presents, furthermore, a consistent, coherent narrative, direct and ordinary. But then the one poem is juxtaposed on the page with one or two other poems, divided each from each most often by way of an enlarged tilden, but then united under a single title. Getting from one of these poems to another requires a figurational leap.
A standing back. - That is the idea, with an Armantrout poem. Taking a mental step back that is predominanty a spatializing step, in order to perceive from that refocused distance the inter-poem connections. Step out of the one poem-section and into the next, then out of them both so as to search for their connecting pathways.
You don't have it
unless you can get it
down
and outside in
some kind of
box.
["The Trick" 84]
This active relationality is not the subjectively arbitrary devising of a reader floating in free mental space, musing to herself. The poem-juxtapositions are deliberate. They are carefully - pointedly, even plottedly - constructed. They are meant to elicit the recognizable experience and the unforeseen connection, but with two provisos; that:
When we recognize we "think again"
without knowing what or if
we thought before.
["Fusion" 88]
and that:
Someone was mimicking
our squawks and jerks
as if they'd been
deliberate,
as if to say,
"Do that again!"
This was love, not mockery -
so we believed.
["Give Pause" 115]
This mimickry not only allows for unforeseen connections between poems - in that, a relation between one poem and another requires "mimickry" of some sort - but the mimickry observed here exists also to be read as a self-conscious admission - about object relations - evoked on a completely different scale: in Wobble, the poet gives us a heightened "late sense" of America in the world.
The unforeseen connections, in other words, are specific to American life. That is to say, not "America" in some enlargening, expansive sense of a possible world, as some of us may have imagined it in the nineties (me included), but in today's realizing of nation-stateness increasingly perceivable as "unforeseen" perhaps only on the other side of the current walls surrounding it. The having it and getting it down (see poem above) applies also to "America." From outside America, America as: a known quantiy.
A standing back, a mental step back, in another sense, then, as well.
July 17, 2019
The Third Person
1
Her attention didn’t wander so much as it was repeatedly pulled out of the
text she was reading as if by a voice or stare. She scanned the recesses of her
awareness to locate the source. There was a faint burning sensation in the
middle distance. Maybe she had to pee. But the imperative was premature.
Whatever this was, it could still flicker out or show itself in an entirely new
light. She tried to find her place again in the crowd of words. This would be
different for the first person, she thought.
2
I’m anxious when you leave so I must love you. But I don’t like the story
you’re telling the strangers around us—rising sea levels, hemorrhagic fevers.
I’ve told it more than once myself. Connect the dots and watch the shape
emerge. “Cut it out,” I want to say, though I don’t know what I mean by “it.”
1
Her attention didn’t wander so much as it was repeatedly pulled out of the
text she was reading as if by a voice or stare. She scanned the recesses of her
awareness to locate the source. There was a faint burning sensation in the
middle distance. Maybe she had to pee. But the imperative was premature.
Whatever this was, it could still flicker out or show itself in an entirely new
light. She tried to find her place again in the crowd of words. This would be
different for the first person, she thought.
2
I’m anxious when you leave so I must love you. But I don’t like the story
you’re telling the strangers around us—rising sea levels, hemorrhagic fevers.
I’ve told it more than once myself. Connect the dots and watch the shape
emerge. “Cut it out,” I want to say, though I don’t know what I mean by “it.”
March 16, 2019
Aside from some individual poem published in magazines, this is my first experience of the poet Rae Armantrout. My impression from those earlier poems was a forthright, irreverent, and somewhat cranky truth-at-all-costs poet, and this collection certainly confirms that. For an individual collection the number of poems is substantial. It's very clear from the first poems, that like many of us, Armantrout is angry and despairing about our government, the environment, and the mounting signs that the odds for extended human life on this planet are not so great. Add to this confronting mortality and imminent decline, and the meaning behind the title is pretty clear.
While I like many things about these poems, the overall impact of this collection was not as profound as other National Book award nominees (I have now read all 5). In particular, the initial poems tend, on one hand, to hit you over the head with the topics (the Trump presidency, the insensitivity of others on many matters) while also often being too skeletal and unfocused to have great impact. The title and perhaps one stanza of the poem would seem to dive into an issue, only to take one or more left turns leaving me unclear of what concern moved her to write the poem.
However, in the middle section of the book especially, the poems are filled out and less structured, sometimes closer to prose. The shift also takes us into the same topics, but a little deeper. The added layer of details makes poems like, "The Third Person", "Flicker", and "My Erasure" hum with life as they wrestle with wasted moments, unresolved issues with dead parents, and the impermanence that has always been there for all of us.
Oh, and for the record, here's how I'd rank the 5 NBA nominees from last year:
1. Indecency (I think the NBAs got it right.)
2. Ghost Of (so creative, original, haunting)
3. American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin (focused anger through the form of the love sonnet to reflect the times we live in)
4. Wobble
5. Eye Level
While I like many things about these poems, the overall impact of this collection was not as profound as other National Book award nominees (I have now read all 5). In particular, the initial poems tend, on one hand, to hit you over the head with the topics (the Trump presidency, the insensitivity of others on many matters) while also often being too skeletal and unfocused to have great impact. The title and perhaps one stanza of the poem would seem to dive into an issue, only to take one or more left turns leaving me unclear of what concern moved her to write the poem.
However, in the middle section of the book especially, the poems are filled out and less structured, sometimes closer to prose. The shift also takes us into the same topics, but a little deeper. The added layer of details makes poems like, "The Third Person", "Flicker", and "My Erasure" hum with life as they wrestle with wasted moments, unresolved issues with dead parents, and the impermanence that has always been there for all of us.
Oh, and for the record, here's how I'd rank the 5 NBA nominees from last year:
1. Indecency (I think the NBAs got it right.)
2. Ghost Of (so creative, original, haunting)
3. American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin (focused anger through the form of the love sonnet to reflect the times we live in)
4. Wobble
5. Eye Level
January 23, 2019
Rae Armantrout is a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet. Her language is unexpected and exact, playing off a collective sense that “the shifting ground of daily reality may be a warning of eminent systemic collapse.” Very few of the poems here were understandable by this reader.
A cover critique states Armantrout’s poetry has as, “its formal lineage ... William Carlos Williams and the Objectivists with their enjambments of modern experience.” Alrighty then! About the only two poems I liked in particular are “Bees” and “Judgement.” The rest were too far out there for me to understand.
I hope to read more of her work in the future. This particular collection did not capture my imagination like other works nominated for the 2018 National Book Award in Poetry.
A cover critique states Armantrout’s poetry has as, “its formal lineage ... William Carlos Williams and the Objectivists with their enjambments of modern experience.” Alrighty then! About the only two poems I liked in particular are “Bees” and “Judgement.” The rest were too far out there for me to understand.
I hope to read more of her work in the future. This particular collection did not capture my imagination like other works nominated for the 2018 National Book Award in Poetry.
April 5, 2019
I heard Rae Armantrout read at an AWP offsite and she absolutely killed it. I had checked out 'Wobble' from the library months prior, but hadn't opened it. Her reading inspired me to finally go through it, and I finished it in less than a day. This collection is made of up lyrical sporadic fragments on the cusp of both mayhem and greatness. Looking forward to reading more of her work.
December 27, 2018
Loved this collection.
December 29, 2018
2019 Read Harder Challenge #9
January 2, 2019
If Rae Armantrout
did not exist
it would be necessary
to invent her.
did not exist
it would be necessary
to invent her.
January 23, 2022
"Able for the first time
to view
large bronze statues
of Dr. Seuss characters."
What if
the wish to be precise
survives
the world of objects
Thumb and forefinger
meet again
as if
for the first time,
tugging once more
on "as if"
* * *
"Keep it real" we say.
Thought is so distilled
there are punch lines
with no jokes attached.
* * *
Hopeful vessels:
a few petals,
thrown up overnight,
fragile
amber flutes,
the sun's
grail cups
were not meant
*
Beauty,
you've sexted me
too often.
Your pert leaves,
coming to a fine point
at the glass,
stop at nothing
*
If we hear
the same sequence
twice,
then someone's flaunting
"inner logic,"
but the wind loose
in copper chimes
is now far
more
to view
large bronze statues
of Dr. Seuss characters."
What if
the wish to be precise
survives
the world of objects
Thumb and forefinger
meet again
as if
for the first time,
tugging once more
on "as if"
- Hell, pg.36
* * *
"Keep it real" we say.
Thought is so distilled
there are punch lines
with no jokes attached.
- Signaling, pg. 101
* * *
Hopeful vessels:
a few petals,
thrown up overnight,
fragile
amber flutes,
the sun's
grail cups
were not meant
*
Beauty,
you've sexted me
too often.
Your pert leaves,
coming to a fine point
at the glass,
stop at nothing
*
If we hear
the same sequence
twice,
then someone's flaunting
"inner logic,"
but the wind loose
in copper chimes
is now far
more
- Vessels, for H.D., pg. 104-105
September 23, 2024
I was not ready for how good this book is. It didn't click with me the first time I read it, just highlighting a couple of verses to, maybe, come back to them later on.
After a while, I finally went back to it. And I ended up quite shaken by it. Rae Armantrout has a very particular point of view, a certain eye for that narrow hallway that ends in a chasm. And she makes you walk through it. She makes you see something that it's not quite hidden, but awaiting at the end.
A brief encounter, an out of place quote, a conversation just barely heard, a concept just irrelevant enough; it's all there, it has always been there. But if you look at it a certain way, if you try to make yourself uncomfortable enough to see: something else, something brilliant, something shiny, something hurtful, too hurtful to say.
Amazing book.
After a while, I finally went back to it. And I ended up quite shaken by it. Rae Armantrout has a very particular point of view, a certain eye for that narrow hallway that ends in a chasm. And she makes you walk through it. She makes you see something that it's not quite hidden, but awaiting at the end.
A brief encounter, an out of place quote, a conversation just barely heard, a concept just irrelevant enough; it's all there, it has always been there. But if you look at it a certain way, if you try to make yourself uncomfortable enough to see: something else, something brilliant, something shiny, something hurtful, too hurtful to say.
Amazing book.
February 15, 2019
As the Beats of the 50s faded and the late 60s ushered in the "Language" (or L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E) poets, a new focus, perhaps, was achieved that looked at language-meaning-as-construction, implicating the reader as proactive mediator... or, we can just sit back and enjoy the poetry...
"Look,/ in this spread/ for leather products,/ a stern-faced man/ in pink pants/ and a bomber jacket/ stands on satin sheets/ in front of a leopard print/ wallpaper/ holding a small briefcase/ or purse.// The market hates you/ even more/ than you hate yourself."
"Look,/ in this spread/ for leather products,/ a stern-faced man/ in pink pants/ and a bomber jacket/ stands on satin sheets/ in front of a leopard print/ wallpaper/ holding a small briefcase/ or purse.// The market hates you/ even more/ than you hate yourself."
February 7, 2020
I understood very few poems in this collection and liked even fewer. For the most part these poems are very choppy. Most of the poems have a title, and then a few phrases making a sentence, then a break and another set of phrases that connects to the title maybe but not the first section, and the a third section.
Not my cup of tea at all. I can't link the sections together, and most of the time I didn't know what she was getting at. I prefer poetry about experiences or nature, not about...thoughts?
I did like:
Silos
Tunnel Vision
Refresh
Not my cup of tea at all. I can't link the sections together, and most of the time I didn't know what she was getting at. I prefer poetry about experiences or nature, not about...thoughts?
I did like:
Silos
Tunnel Vision
Refresh
June 24, 2024
“The background/ is everything/ that, for now,/ can be safely/ ignored” (12)
“The object is “vibrant,” “withdrawn,”/ and “incoherent.”/ A small range of times/ coexist within the object/ or, if the object is large,/ it may extend through times/ that are unwilling/ to coexist./ in this sense, the object/ hasn’t been itself lately” (85)
“I expect compensation/ for all I don’t/ say—/ for each time I stop/ before coming/ to an obvious conclusion/ or an uncertain end—/ for my discretion” (96)
“Virtual particles/ carry the current” (128)
“The object is “vibrant,” “withdrawn,”/ and “incoherent.”/ A small range of times/ coexist within the object/ or, if the object is large,/ it may extend through times/ that are unwilling/ to coexist./ in this sense, the object/ hasn’t been itself lately” (85)
“I expect compensation/ for all I don’t/ say—/ for each time I stop/ before coming/ to an obvious conclusion/ or an uncertain end—/ for my discretion” (96)
“Virtual particles/ carry the current” (128)
December 24, 2019
**3 stars**
I liked the poems in Wobble well enough while I was reading them, but found Armantrout's collection difficult to penetrate overall. It seems to be about the flux of various media surrounding us at all times while other more urgent and pressing matters attempt to break through and get our attention. None of the poems was particularly memorable for me. Not great, not terrible - just okay.
I liked the poems in Wobble well enough while I was reading them, but found Armantrout's collection difficult to penetrate overall. It seems to be about the flux of various media surrounding us at all times while other more urgent and pressing matters attempt to break through and get our attention. None of the poems was particularly memorable for me. Not great, not terrible - just okay.
January 20, 2020
Meh. There was nothing inherently wrong with this book of poetry- it just didn’t inspire or effect me in any meaningful way, which is what I look for in poetry. I’ve never been a huge fan of avant-garde poetry and I suppose that includes the Language subgroup as well. If you like short, simplistic verse with straight forward language then you might like this. It just wasn’t for me.
February 13, 2020
Some of her poems are quite beautiful in their stilted-ness, but I was more often confused, feeling like I needed to be smarter to understand each poem. She definitely has a way with words, poem construction and tone, even juxtaposition, but the vagueness and sometimes bizarre, almost avant-garde thoughts left me scratching my head.
December 2, 2021
As I often do with Armantrout's work, I struggled to make sense, find meaning, find a way through some of her poems, and then others hit me in the gut and felt like capital t Truth. This collection was more the former than the latter, but that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy the ride, just that I really wished to have my Modpo poetry posse with me to help me worth through them all.
March 6, 2019
In poetry, there is intricacy. RAE ARMANTROUT adds luster to that frail, and gentle depth in a seemingly dangerous well to be around. Humanity has on its side this reality of drowning, with the choice to see beauty in slowing the way down. These poems, I adore.
January 14, 2019
“All those I reconstruct
so faithfully
in dreams
in order
to defend myself
to somebody”
so faithfully
in dreams
in order
to defend myself
to somebody”
March 12, 2019
These poems by the Pulitzer Prize winning Armantrout follow her consistently sparse and challenging work. I found the few poems written in prose in this collection most engaging.
May 20, 2019
A really excellent collection of relatable, relevant, and interesting poems. 4.5 🌟
Read
February 2, 2020Language as reflection--of loss and collapse--and refraction, as attempted transcendence.
May 10, 2020
Some real bangers but not all
April 14, 2022
I didn't understand it 😕
Read
April 14, 2022The only line that made me feel something was this one:
Poets wanted [...]
to burn the sun.
I abhor the latter too, dear Rae.
Poets wanted [...]
to burn the sun.
I abhor the latter too, dear Rae.
September 15, 2022
Few contemporary poets can match Armantrout's ability to say so much with so few words. Every poem is a locked treasure chest for which the reader has to find the key.
February 14, 2024
her poetry gave me energy.
April 15, 2024
I was taken aback by some of the things in this book, I wasn’t prepared for them especially when it came to the fact that when reading the blurb of this book those things weren’t mentioned.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 37 reviews