Finalists
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
A double book by Pulitzer Prize winning poet Rae Armantrout
What will we call the last generation before the looming end times? With Finalists Rae Armantrout suggests one option. Brilliant and irascible, playful and intense, Armantrout nails the current moment's debris fields and super computers, its sizzling malaise and confusion, with an exemplary immensity of heart and a boundless capacity for humor. The poems in this book find (and create) beauty in midst of the ongoing crisis.
CONTRAST
What's to like
if not contrast?
Shadows beneath
the model's sharp
cheekbones, her ample
yet precise lips.
Clean lines separating
bounty
from its opposite.
This is not
what I want
to want.
These eyes
on the hypothetical
distance.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Armantrout (Conjure) returns with a lovely exercise in surprise. These sparse but searing poems leap from one mode to another, what Armantrout describes in "How to Disappear" as "swinging restlessly/ between the appearance of spontaneity/ and the appearance of serious thought." In tracing the mind's twisting and turning movements, her imagination is on full display, as when she imagines "St. Peter/ as a special concierge/ or a supercomputer/ listening." Armantrout does not shy away from critiquing systems of abuse that bolster American life, especially capitalism: "By naming its vape flavor/ ‘Unicorn Poop,'/ Drip Star/ parodies marketing,/ thus appealing/ to children." However, the collection resists imparting easy lessons, above all else celebrating the mind, its horrors and respites, its wanderings, and its potential to connect seemingly incongruous things out of "eternity's hodgepodge." She posits: "Since mind/ is the gape/ of surprise/ propped open,/ we can stop/ and think." This striking, playful collection, which encourages readers to recognize their own capacity to astound themselves, celebrates the unexpected in times of crisis.
