Precedence

by Rae Armantrout

Poetry. "Hard edge.... [She] uses words with laser precision to explore facets which a lesser intelligence would never notice. Her sense of the essential is unfailing"--Ron Silliman. "A.'s phrasing and sculptured concision give her poems an exceptional formal coherence. Her ear shapes solid landscapes.... More typically she prefers an elusive humor, layered with parody and occasionally populated by cartoon characters in various stages of panic. The offhandedness of her manner is belied by the complex emotional charge she gets from apparently banal materials"--Geoffrey O'Brien, Voice Literary Supplement. "Armantrout's poems ride the fence of the Language School movement. PRECEDENCE features poems of wit and humor not typical of the movement"--John Stickney, The Columbus Dispatch.

Genres: Poetry, Language

44 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1986

About the author

Rae Armantrout is an American poet generally associated with the Language poets. Armantrout was born in Vallejo, California but grew up in San Diego. She has published ten books of poetry and has also been featured in a number of major anthologies. Armantrout currently teaches at the University of California, San Diego, where she is Professor of Poetry and Poetics.

On March 11, 2010, Armantrout was awarded the 2009 National Book Critics Circle Award for her book of poetry Versed published by the Wesleyan University Press, which had also been nominated for the National Book Award. The book later earned the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. Armantrout’s most recent collection, Money Shot, was published in February 2011. She is the recipient of numerous other awards for her poetry, including most recently an award in poetry from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts in 2007 and a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2008.