Rae+Armantrout


 * Rae Armantrou t** is a writer from California considered to be a language poet. Her poetry appears simple, but actually challenges the way language is used. Her poetry and that of other language poetry gained prominence during the @Vietnam War, and was in many ways a response to the war itself.

=Biography=

Born in California in 1947, Armanatrout was raised as an only child in a military family. Armantrout discovered the works of @William Carlos Williams and Denise Levertov while at San Diego University, sparking her love for literature. From this exposure, she refocused her energies on American poetry and transferred to University of California, Berkley, from which she holds a BA degree. Here she had the opportunity to study with Denise Levertov and formed a community of what was to be the San Francisco language poets of the 1980's. She also holds a master's degree in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University.

In the early '70's her first poems were accepted to magazines and anthologies, allowing her to claim the title "poet." She published her first book of poems, "Extremities" in 1978 and continued to publish a half dozen other books of poetry. In 2000 a collection called "A Wild Salience : The Writing of Rae Armantrout" was published which included a handful of her poems and essays by well-known writers about her and her style of poetry. Armantrout is widely recognized and highly awarded for her work. Most recently she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for her book of poetry "Versed," published in 2009. Her most recent poetry collection, "Money Shot" was published just last year. Armantrout now teaches at the University of California - San Diego, where she teaches workshops and organizes conferences and reading series to celebrate poetry. Robert Creeley is quoted as saying in reference to Armantrout, “I don’t think there’s another poet writing who is so consummate in authority and yet so generous to her readers and company alike.”

=Language Poetry=

Armantrout's creative process is distinctive and laborious. She is quoted saying: "Generally it takes me quite a while to write even a short poem. A month media type="youtube" key="wcS-7uEKdy8" height="282" width="504" align="right"might be average. Language begins accreted around an initially vague impression. The process of turning the gathered material into a "poem" is usually one of seeing potential connections between the previously discrete lines or sections. However, "Through Walls," a relatively long poem for me, was written continuously in the space of a rather charged hour and a half. I wish I could do that more often."

  Armantrout is considered a Language Poet. @Language Poetry was a movement in the late 70's and early 80's that challenged the tradition conventions of the meaning of language in literature. Poetry in this style attempts to engage the reader fully in the reading experience, challenging the traditional view by forcing the reader to approach the text in an unconventional way. She is considered a lyric representative of this group, writing outside the mainstream bounds of literature. Her poetry meets in a marriage of the crossroads between ambiguity and inherent honesty. She writes to explore and question, not only societal constructs but the very foundation of language as we know and use it. She questions femininity, capitalism, etc and essentially deconstructs linguist norms. Her post-modern approach has gained her fame for more than thirty years.

Examples of Artists' Work


 In "Versed," Armantrout works with succinct short phrases that are intended to hit the reader on a deeply emotional level, only however, if they are willing to put in the time for interpretation and reflection. She wrote half of the book during a deeply emotional part of her own life. Diagnosed with a rare form of cancer, she wrote believing she only had a few short months left to live. Many of her poems she wrote while in the hospital or undergoing treatment, marking her journey along the way. This dark experience of course seeped through into her work, though she is now in remission. She intended her poetry overall to be a yield sign to the reader, causing them to stop and reflect on the basis of language down to its roots.

 In an interview with "Poetry Daily," Armantrout fielded questions about her writing style and process, revealing insights into the shaping of her poems. Many of Armantrout's poems have a conversive style to them, with a variety of voices competing for attention. The presence of these "voices" is vital and intriguing. "Sometimes they become the voices in my head—voices from the media, or a tone of voice from my mother. My beginning point is to separate myself from them [the voices], or throw them off by putting brackets around them," she says. She'll quote entire lines from magazines, junk mail, her phone bill: all contributing back to the poem's rhythm and miraculously, connecting the sections. Armantrout also comments on the use of questions and unfinished sentences in her poems. By not finalizing the line with a period she allows room for the reader to continue questioning, through this ambiguity she leaves the process open. Finding resolution isn't her overall goal as might be a novelists or a more traditional poets: "I often begin with a sense of puzzlement about something—with a real question, perhaps unformed in my own mind. There might not be an answer to it, so you work through and you still end unresolved."

 Her poems seek to exist in that overlap "between colors" as she calls it, reminiscent of collage style pieces. Her descriptions hark back to Cubism in nature, a Juan Gris style interpretation of the word. She likes poking at these edges to understand why and where they exist and leaves us questioning when these bounds were first established for us, likely in childhood. Her poems are a very sensory process in this sense, much like a painting. Her poems are the culmination of a lot of overlapping ideas and beliefs and many toe the line between religious beliefs and scientific language. She also enjoys basing her work off of influential dreams she's had.

 //See the full interview here: http://poems.com/special_features/prose/essay_armantrout.php//

Excerpt from "Xenophobia"
 By [| Rae Armantrout]

 **3**

 // when I saw the frame was rotten, //  // crumbling away from the glass, //  //<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> in spots, in other places still attached // <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> //<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> with huge globs of putty. //

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> //<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> The doctor forced me to repeat the word. //

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> //<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Chimera. Cold feet. //

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> //<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> scared and unreal looking at buildings. // <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> //<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> The thin Victorians with scaly paint, // <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> //<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> their flimsy backporches linked // <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> //<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> by skeletal stairways. //

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Rae Armantrout, “Xenophobia” from Veil: New and Selected Poems.

Scumble
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> What if I were turned on by seemingly innocent words such as “scumble,” “pinky,” <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> or “extrapolate?” <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> What if I maneuvered conversation in the hope that others would pronounce these <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> words? <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Perhaps the excitement would come from the way the other person touched them <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> lightly and carelessly with his tongue. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> What if “of” were such a hot button? <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> “Scumble of bushes.” <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> What if there were a hidden pleasure <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> in calling one thing <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> by another’s name? <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Scumble by Rae Armantrout

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> This poem deals with the fetishism of words; it discusses the way in which words can give us pleasure. Robert Creeley's "Pieces" harkens back to this idea within his poem as well,

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> "Words <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> are <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> pleasure. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> All <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> words."

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> The poem feels quite prose-like, without a clear rhythm. The quote "What if there were hidden pleasure/in calling one thing/by another's name?" brings to mind Shakespeare in Romeo and Juliet, that "A rose by any other name would spell just as sweet."

**<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">External Links **

<span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: left;">//Link to Language Poetry Page// <span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: left;">//Recording of "Scumble": [|"Scumble" on Poets.org]// <span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: left;">//<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Chat with Rae Armantrout about Versed // <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> [|Rae Armantrout on Religion and Cosmology] <span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: left;">Rae Armantrout reading from Versed <span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: left;">[|Rae Armantrout Online Works] <span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: left;">[|Armantrout's Poetry of Suspicion]

**<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">References **
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