What do you think?
Rate this book
Finalists
A double book by Pulitzer Prize winning poet Rae Armantrout
What will we call the last generation before the looming end times? With Finalists Rae Armantrout suggests one option. Brilliant and irascible, playful and intense, Armantrout nails the current moment's debris fields and super computers, its sizzling malaise and confusion, with an exemplary immensity of heart and a boundless capacity for humor. The poems in this book find (and create) beauty in midst of the ongoing crisis.
What will we call the last generation before the looming end times? With Finalists Rae Armantrout suggests one option. Brilliant and irascible, playful and intense, Armantrout nails the current moment's debris fields and super computers, its sizzling malaise and confusion, with an exemplary immensity of heart and a boundless capacity for humor. The poems in this book find (and create) beauty in midst of the ongoing crisis.
- GenresPoetry
176 pages, Paperback
First published March 8, 2022
8 people are currently reading
154 people want to read
About the author
Rae Armantrout
76 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.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
August 8, 2022
Amazing, ten stars, fave of the year.
August 12, 2024
The rating isn’t personal. I think I just didn’t get it TBH. There were a handful of passages within poems that I thought to be moving though!
August 13, 2023
My first Armantrout. I'm no longer sure why I avoided her work for so long, but it turns out her reputation is deserved.
Read
March 13, 202325: Finalists by Rae Armantrout
I was sent toward Rae Armantrout's poetry--albeit a different volume, originally--when seeking literature connected to or set in or written by someone residing in or near San Diego, California.
There is so very little about reading a volume of poetry that is like reading a novel or even an essay or a short story, let alone a collection of essays or short stories, from start to finish. And I often feel like I am doing the volume of poetry a disservice of sorts when I attempt to read it as such, front to back, beginning to end, knowing full well that it is unlikely to work well that way. The exception is, perhaps, when I have been previously introduced to the poet's work and thus possess prior to entry components of the key or legend to reading and making sense of the poet's style and ideas, a handful of clues or ways "in" to that poetry.
In this case I didn't hold any of those keys: Rae Armantrout's poetry is brand new to me. Good thing I have another volume to look forward to, such that possibly with what I have now learned from this volume, some things will seem familiar in engaging with the next.
It is far, far more fun to teach a poet or poem to students or, at the very least, to read and learn about it with a small group, such that everyone brings ideas of their own to the sense-making, and everyone sees and finds their own avenue in to a poem, sharing insights with the others.
I always think a volume of poetry should be read one poem at a time, rather than cover to cover. But making time to read each poem separately would make it much less likely that I'd get the entire book to read.
This poetry will grow on me, I think. I look forward to reading more of hers.
I was sent toward Rae Armantrout's poetry--albeit a different volume, originally--when seeking literature connected to or set in or written by someone residing in or near San Diego, California.
There is so very little about reading a volume of poetry that is like reading a novel or even an essay or a short story, let alone a collection of essays or short stories, from start to finish. And I often feel like I am doing the volume of poetry a disservice of sorts when I attempt to read it as such, front to back, beginning to end, knowing full well that it is unlikely to work well that way. The exception is, perhaps, when I have been previously introduced to the poet's work and thus possess prior to entry components of the key or legend to reading and making sense of the poet's style and ideas, a handful of clues or ways "in" to that poetry.
In this case I didn't hold any of those keys: Rae Armantrout's poetry is brand new to me. Good thing I have another volume to look forward to, such that possibly with what I have now learned from this volume, some things will seem familiar in engaging with the next.
It is far, far more fun to teach a poet or poem to students or, at the very least, to read and learn about it with a small group, such that everyone brings ideas of their own to the sense-making, and everyone sees and finds their own avenue in to a poem, sharing insights with the others.
I always think a volume of poetry should be read one poem at a time, rather than cover to cover. But making time to read each poem separately would make it much less likely that I'd get the entire book to read.
This poetry will grow on me, I think. I look forward to reading more of hers.
August 17, 2022
What a fun find. I was browsing my library and picked this up on a whim because I was in the mood for poetry. Little did I know that I had just randomly selected a Pulitzer Poet! I loved everything that was evoked by these poems, even if I didn't quite feel like I understood all the meanings. It was a lovely collection to go through, and I particularly enjoyed how science-y some of the poems were. I definitely want to pick up more collections from this poet.
Read
September 22, 2022favorites: Hang On, Red Sky at Night, My Place, How To Disappear, Asterisk, Elsewhere, The Steps, Crescendo, Lions, Quit, Sayings, Ghosting, Endearment
January 14, 2023
One of my favorite poets of all time, at the top of her game.
March 13, 2023
3 1/2 stars
February 14, 2024
Short, clean, and versatile… the things about Rae’s poems that I like.
February 16, 2024
“If that’s my mind / I don’t want it.”
April 6, 2025
This was some really interesting poetry, bouncing between banal and crushingly deep between stanzas. I slowed down my reading sessions toward the end because I didn’t want it to be over.
December 2, 2025
Rae Armantrout, above her prestigious award-pocked career, shimmers fresh and alive in Finalists. I’ve read her for some fifteen years, in publications such as The New Yorker and Poets.org. Finalists continues my earnest.
When I laureled her on my Facebook: “I am leveled daily. I have this experiment that if I read enough of someone, I start to adapt some of her flair and means. Like a dog hanging so much around a koi pond, it starts to grow scales of its own,” I realize I am doing “The Fold,” poem on page 34. Brilliant exercise, starkly conservative in meaning and words, yet the message is powerful and was dug from the deepest crevices of our daily life.
There are 140 energy-filled poems (humorous, sure; reaffirming, certainly) in this collection. That’s 140 times more layers of shock and experience added to my humble life. It’s a how-to book in a profound sense.
“Of course, I can never hold a candle to the Pulitzer recipient, but…I can feel the warm wax,” I continued my praise on FB. The poem on page 85 “The Steps” is packed with half of the poetic terms known to the art, all within a page and a half.
Masters can do this and still manage warmth.
When I laureled her on my Facebook: “I am leveled daily. I have this experiment that if I read enough of someone, I start to adapt some of her flair and means. Like a dog hanging so much around a koi pond, it starts to grow scales of its own,” I realize I am doing “The Fold,” poem on page 34. Brilliant exercise, starkly conservative in meaning and words, yet the message is powerful and was dug from the deepest crevices of our daily life.
There are 140 energy-filled poems (humorous, sure; reaffirming, certainly) in this collection. That’s 140 times more layers of shock and experience added to my humble life. It’s a how-to book in a profound sense.
“Of course, I can never hold a candle to the Pulitzer recipient, but…I can feel the warm wax,” I continued my praise on FB. The poem on page 85 “The Steps” is packed with half of the poetic terms known to the art, all within a page and a half.
Masters can do this and still manage warmth.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews