Starred review from December 20, 2010
In her follow-up to the Pulitzer- and National Book Critics Circle Award-winning Versed, Armantrout--who has always built her wily, jumpy, intricately witty and wise poems from scraps of popular and high culture, overheard speech, and found text, as well as her own quirky observations--tackles, in her oblique and inimitable way, what is perhaps the signature issue of the new millennium: money, or, more generally, how everything human has a price. "Hit the refresh button/ and this is what you get," writes Armantrout in "Money Talks": "money pretending/ that its hands are tied." These poems observe a world in which we assign blame to money—or "Mother," "Great angels" and "the objects/ I have caused// to represent me/ in my absence"—rather than take responsibility ourselves. We also mistake superstitious obsession for hard work, believing, for example, "The idea that,/ if I say it well enough,/ fear/ will be gone." And it's a world where degradation is sexy ("They're beneath you/ and it's hot") and "Security cameras/ record each moment, but/ nobody can bear to watch." Armantrout is only getting better: these new poems are among her best, and among the most relevant poems now being written.
December 1, 2010
In her first book after Versed, winner of last year's Pulitzer Prize and National Book Critics Circle award, Armantrout presents 62 poems that showcase the language poetry techniques of quick tonal changes, subject leaps, and the incorporation of white space. The poems move rapidly, partially because Armantrout writes a very short line--often three words or fewer--with many paragraph breaks. Her descriptions have the quality of things glanced at sideways, and she is best at describing unusual details: "All night/ the sea coughs up// green strands." Many poems have two halves that speak about entirely different subjects; the reader must make connections between them. The poems require multiple readings, and sometimes the meanings are still not clear. For example, the title poem begins, "IndyMac: // Able to exploit pre-/existing.// Tain.// Per. In. Con./ Cyst." After research, one finds that IndyMac is a mortgage company involved in the banking and loan failure and "tain" is tin plate or foil. Still, the poet's unique way of observing the world combined with dynamic language creates beautiful sections. VERDICT These poems will appeal to those who like language poetry, but more traditionalists may side with the question posed in the title poem, "Why don't you just say/ what you mean?"--Doris Lynch, Monroe Cty. P.L., Bloomington, IN
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