Poet's Corner: Rae Armantrout
Feb. 6th, 2025 09:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stonepicnicking_okapiI finished Versed by Rae Armantrout, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 2010. I liked many of the poems, and I liked specific lines in many of them. Here are some favorites.
[This one seems very timely.]
Previews
AMERICA
The playboy scion of a weapons company repents. His company, he sees now, is corrupt, his weapons being sold (behind his back) to strong men. Alone, he builds a super weapon in the shape of a man. Now, more powerful and more innocent than ever before, he attacks.
HAPPENING
The train halts. An engineer tells us we’re stopped because we’ve lost touch with the outside world. Things are happening ahead, but we don’t know what they are. This could represent an act of war. We stand in a field, no longer passengers.
---
[Some I can't find whole to cut-and-paste.]
from "Relations"
Bring me the friendship
between solving
and dissolving.
---
Unbidden
The ghosts swarm.
They speak as one
person. Each
loves you. Each
has left something
undone.
*
Did the palo verde
blush yellow
all at once?
Today's edges
are so sharp
they might cut
anything that moved.
*
The way a lost
word
will come back
unbidden.
You're not interested
in it now,
only
in knowing
where it's been.
[I like the last section especially. It is a good example of how poetry can name something that is nebulous]
from "The Light"
In a televised moment,
a ruffled pink mantis
is snapping up vinegar flies.
[Once again, you know exactly what kind of scene the poet is portraying and the portrayal is vicious and accurate.]
The Hole
A string of notes —
A string of words
could be a worm
or a needle
passing
in and out
through some hole —
stitching what to what?
I imagine myself
passing
among your thoughts,
a sleepwalker,
saying and doing things
I am ignorant of
as they occur.
[This one seems very timely.]
Previews
AMERICA
The playboy scion of a weapons company repents. His company, he sees now, is corrupt, his weapons being sold (behind his back) to strong men. Alone, he builds a super weapon in the shape of a man. Now, more powerful and more innocent than ever before, he attacks.
HAPPENING
The train halts. An engineer tells us we’re stopped because we’ve lost touch with the outside world. Things are happening ahead, but we don’t know what they are. This could represent an act of war. We stand in a field, no longer passengers.
---
[Some I can't find whole to cut-and-paste.]
from "Relations"
Bring me the friendship
between solving
and dissolving.
---
Unbidden
The ghosts swarm.
They speak as one
person. Each
loves you. Each
has left something
undone.
*
Did the palo verde
blush yellow
all at once?
Today's edges
are so sharp
they might cut
anything that moved.
*
The way a lost
word
will come back
unbidden.
You're not interested
in it now,
only
in knowing
where it's been.
[I like the last section especially. It is a good example of how poetry can name something that is nebulous]
from "The Light"
In a televised moment,
a ruffled pink mantis
is snapping up vinegar flies.
[Once again, you know exactly what kind of scene the poet is portraying and the portrayal is vicious and accurate.]
The Hole
A string of notes —
A string of words
could be a worm
or a needle
passing
in and out
through some hole —
stitching what to what?
I imagine myself
passing
among your thoughts,
a sleepwalker,
saying and doing things
I am ignorant of
as they occur.