Conjure

by Rae Armantrout

CARE

Dress like you care!
Eat like you care!
Care like you care!

You don't think
apples just grow on trees,
do you?

*

A fish taps a clam
against a bony knob
of coral
to crack its shell -

which demonstrates intelligence
yes, but
is the fish
pleased with itself?

*

Alone in your crib,
you form syllables.

Are you happy when one
is like another?

Add yourself
to yourself.

Now you have someone

Rae Armantrout has always taken pleasure in uncertainties and conundrums, the tricky nuances of language and feeling. In Conjure that pleasure is matched by dread; fascination meets fear as the poet considers the emergence of new life (twin granddaughters) into an increasingly toxic the Amazon smolders, children are caged or die crossing rivers and oceans, and weddings make convenient targets for drone strikes. These poems explore the restless border between self and non-self and ask us to look with new eyes at what we're doing.

Genres: Poetry

145 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 8, 2020

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

[Ellen]

I loved these poems although I was unable to make the connections described in the blurb. My failure. Nevertheless, I loved the language and the inventiveness of thought. Each poem was like a little puzzle and yet at the same time already completed.

Altogether, I was touched, amused, and continually fascinated.

[Hannah Kathleen]

Maybe I'm dumb, but there wasn't enough tangibility to the poems. I wanted to touch the images but it was all half finished thoughts. I felt like most of the poems would be better in essays too.

[Harry Palacio]

Quips on life that needed a second over… the astute Rae leads with her incredulous insight, a wizened woman and Pulitzer Prize winner

[mwpm]

How did the synthesis
cross the abyss?

*

In a sentimental story
there is only one

of something:
one newborn,

one moment, one
"once" embalmed

in myrrh.

*

All I want
is not to be

first on one side,
then the other,

but to conjure
a stream

of sound and images
for which I am not

responsible.
and maneuver within it -

mouth and tall
one thought.

*

The sea, now full
of cannibal

jellies, blue
if the sky says so

- Conjure, pg. 1-2

* * *

1
Before the show beginsm there's an ad for enlightenment.
"We make the sham solidarity of youth real!"

And this is the heaven we wanted,
starting off togeether at dawn,
open savannah before us.

Then history.

2
Like tourists, we're taken
by the web of light and shadow
on our wall
and grab our cameras.

Like tourists, we're carried away
by the sober thuds
of Frontline's theme music, its
rhythmically punctuated threats.

3
When I say, "Where have you been?"
I'm furious
because I don't already know.

Are you still,
still
the gap
in my world?

- Our History, pg. 70

* * *

To convey great effort
and mild reluctance,
one groans briefly
when sitting up in bed.

This is sometimes known
as prayer.

*

Ignore the wind chimes.
They're a bad example.

*

To stand beneath
or walk behind -

to comprehend! -

to grab wildly
at surrounding objects.

*

Some grab at attention
by quipping, "I don't care."

Others sit in corners
closely watching their fingers.

*

We fill the world
with selfie avatars,

and more and more
children

refuse to recognize their names.

- Understandings, pg. 123-124

[Annika]

Maybe she is trying to figure out what a thing is.
1. Has to be recognizable - might just be giving ground relative to her argument
2. Must have a relationship with an Other

And then looks at consciousness. Lacan example, mirror stage. Baby recognizes self in mirror, invites insecurity. The self is now split, doubled. We are subjects, precisely, because we our not identical to ourselves.
“To be conscious is to answer your own questions without really hearing them” - example of the unconscious.

And then she discusses problems with consciousness. Nice Kant moments of how freedom is snared due to choice.

A fish can be intelligent, but can it be pleased with itself? Too much intelligence = destruction. (Ai example)

[Linda]

I'm on an Armantrout kick to finish the year. This is possibly too much of her poetry at once when it should be parceled out more thoughtfully throughout the year. First off I like Armantrout. Kind of objectivist/languagey in execution, but really short repetitive forms. Her poems are almost always more question than deptermination. A lot of them are in three-stanza chunks which tend to go: situation one, situation two, uneasy resolution/question arising out of their confluence. ? If you're being reductive that will do. Anyway, these more recent collections have a decent eye on the zeitgeist.

[Matthew]

This is one of the best books of poetry I've ever read. It's serious yet playful, erudite yet economical. The wordplay/puzzle is never the end, it always has a point.

I'll be keeping it on my shelf to read again in the future, great read.

[William]

Didn't love this. Still dislike giving poetry books less than 3 stars on GR bc of how few people read (real) poetry. (alas!) However, my eyes glazed over for most this book. Lot of loose threads, making the reader do more work than expected /not offering enough footholds.

[Dave Tilley]

Excellent book of poems from a fab poet.

[Desirae]

Perplexing yet lifeless prose.

[Brittany]

DNF. I like the cadence, but I'm not understanding the poetry.

[Jessica]

https://jacket2.org/reviews/between-h...

Here’s my review of Armantrout’s Conjure for jacket2.

[Muhammad Rajab Al-mukarrom]

The simplicity of words and design were so on point.

[Erin]

3/26

Hmmm. I am not sure I loved this. Okay. I’m sure if didn’t.

[Jenni]

I love that Nick Cave gave such a glowing review of Armantrout’s work; and I love that, when she acknowledged this in a podcast interview, she called him “Nick Cage.”

[a l n]

carries the kind of phenomenological self-reflexivity / skepticism expected of language poetry, but feels a bit too respectful in its archness, though loved the glimmers of withdrawn reflection

[Sarah]

"Where is the link
between kindling
and kin?"

[Mary]

Poetry

[Kendra Parker]

I had a tough time with this collection of poems. I could never get the images and thoughts to fully form in my head in a way that I created understanding for me. The images were beautiful and it’s not that I didn’t enjoy the reading of this collection, it’s just that the poems remained birds in the sky and I was too far away to be able to make out what kind of birds they were. Lovely to see but can’t describe it to anyone.

[Penn Kemp]

“A good dream convinces me
the machine can run
unattended
Rae Armentrout,"Ghost Story", Conjure

Love how the old poet records a baby's perceptions

[Meg]

why was this like 50 words in total