Calendar Home
Previous Reading:
« JOSEPH CAMPANA
Next Reading:
JOSHUA MARIE WILKINSON »
|
|
Open Books: Event Archive
March 26, 2006 03:30 PM
RAE ARMANTROUT
Rae Armantrout's marvelous poems are made up most often of short lines and considerable white space. They are open-ended, several closing without periods. She writes with commanding humor ("Can a dreamer / outwit her dream? // Not on a first date"), and smarts ("The material world is made up / entirely // of collisions // between otherwise / indefinite objects. // Then what is a collision?"), employing the jagged musical phrases of thought brought to poetry by William Carlos Williams. Her most recent book, Up To Speed ($13.95 Wesleyan), where the lines above are found, is a delightful collection of intricate, bright, even sassy poems. Hints of mortality and a range of emotions can be found in Ms. Armantrout's recent work, but primarily her art seems to be in locating the self in a world that is continually locating itself. "The mind tries / to see patterns. // What do
these things have in common? // They behave as if / impatient."
|
|
