Extremities

by Rae Armantrout

Extremities was published by The Figures (Berkeley, California) in June of 1978. 8 x 5 and 1/2 inches. Offset. Glue bound. Black and white paper covers. Edition of 500.

Genres: Poetry

43 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1978

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.

Reviews

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Extremities

 Going to the Desert
 is the old term

 'landscape of zeros'

 the glitter of edges
 again catches the eye

 to approach these swords!

 lines across which
 being vanish / flare 

the charmed verges of presence




TRACK

Old, nagging sense of 'Far enough!'
What are you afraid of?
 *
To lose track of...
 *
Lost at sea

 Lost
in thought




RIDDLE

this same riddle:
IS IT ALRIGHT?

qualm that persists
on the bus ride

"Tonight there's
the movie"
a woman soothes her son

bu even in an audience
comes -
was it the first thought?

ALRIGHT NOW? you - grim crowd
 you - family
 of
 nerves
OR NOT




TONE

 1
Hoping my face shows the pleasure I felt, I'm
smiling languidly. Acting. To put your mind
at rest - how odd! At first we loved because
we startled one another

 2
 Not pleased to see the
 rubberband, chapstick, tin-
 foil, this pen, things
 made for our use

 But the bouquet you made of
 doorknobs, long nails for 
 their stems sometimes
 bring happiness

 3
Is it bourgeois to dwell on nuance? Or effeminate?
Or should we attend to it the way a careful animal
sniffs the wind?

 4
 Say the tone of an afternoon
 Kindly but sad
 "The ark of the ache of it"
 12 doorsteps per block

 5
 In the suburbs butterflies
 still spiral up the breeze
 like a drawing of weightlessness
 To enter into this spirit!
 But Mama's saying she's alright
 "as far as breathing and all that"

 6
When you're late I turn slavish, listen hard for
your footsteps. Sound that represents the end of
lack




SIGNS

Can I trust this?

Or what the country says
by green? Miles

of avocado groves;
not monotony

but health
full rest




GRACE

 1
a spring there
where his entry must be made

signals him on

 2
the sentence
 flies

isn't turned to salt
no stuttering

 3
I am walking

covey in sudden flight




UNIVERSE

Ultimately....fabricates.
Rotate a little, big baby.
"matter, left alone." Of course!
This way, it is thought,
a little faster and so on.
Tending to tend. Indeed
appear
O main sequence




GENERATION

We know the story

She turns 
back to find her trail
devoured by birds

The years; the
undergrowth




from JOURNAL ENTRIES: Youth

 I
I'm at my mother's house. We are quarreling. She
pulls out my old Childcraft books and starts to read
aloud. "When The Frost Is On the Punkin" - with
angry intensity. This means she left something crucial
in her Middle Western youth. Something undefined I
am to mourn. Can I resist?

 II
Of course I understand! The missing vibrancy. Electric
green of the frontyards at twilight. San Diego, navy
housing, families sitting in lawn-chairs. Thru-out my
childhood objects gleamed with the intensity of fetish.
Are all children fetishists?

 III
Only the very young are sane. They feel immortal
and regard events with a true seriousness we cannot
reach.

 IV
(Say seldom. Seldom reach

Read the full text here: eclipsearchive.org

[Talia · Rating 4 out of 5]

"all of religion compressed
in the word 'darling'"