Up to Speed: Poems (Wesleyan Poetry) - Softcover

Armantrout, Rae

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0819566985 ISBN 13: 9780819566980

Publisher: Wesleyan University Press, 2004

Synopsis

Corrosive new poems from a poet whose work challenges expectations.

Rae Armantrout's most recent collection of poems focuses on the phenomenon of time, both as lived experience at the start of the 21st century and as a stubborn mystery confronting physicists and philosophers. The poems in this book are polyphonic: they juxtapose the discourses of science and religion, Hollywood and the occasional psychotic stranger. The title poem, which appears in Best American Poetry 2002, leads off with a "sphinx" asking "Does a road / run its whole length / at once? / Does a creature / curve to meet / itself?" Armantrout's work, with its careful syntax bordering on plain speech and meticulously scored short lines, is always struggling with the problem of consciousness, its blindspots and double-binds. The poems whirl like shifting and scattered pieces of the present moment. They attempt to "make sense" of our lives while acknowledging the depth of our self-deception and deception.

About this title

About the Author

RAE ARMANTROUT is professor emerita of writing at the University of California, San Diego, and the author of thirteen previous books of poetry.

Edition details

• Publisher: Wesleyan University Press
• Publication date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0819566985
• ISBN 13: 9780819566980
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 80