What do "self" and "it" have in common? In Rae Armantrout's new poems, there is no inert substance. Self and it (word and particle) are ritual and rigmarole, song-and-dance and long distance call into whatever dark matter might exist. How could a self not be selfish? Armantrout accesses the strangeness of everyday occurrence with wit, sensuality, and an eye alert to underlying trauma, as in the poem "Price Points" where a man conducts an imaginary orchestra but "gets no points for originality." In their investigations of the cosmically mundane, Armantrout's poems use an extraordinary microscopic lens - even when she's glancing backwards from the outer reaches of space. An online reader's companion is available at http://raearmantrout.site.wesleyan.edu.
About the AuthorRAE ARMANTROUT is professor emerita of writing at the University of California, San Diego, and the author of thirteen previous books of poetry.
Book InformationISBN 9780819574671
Author Rae ArmantroutFormat Hardback
Page Count 112
Imprint Wesleyan University PressPublisher Wesleyan University Press