Description

Keen, pithy meditations on a world that continues to surprise us

The poems in Pulitzer Prize-winner Rae Armantrout s new book are concerned with this ongoing attempt to catalog the world in a time of escalating disasters. From the bird who check-marks morning once more like someone who gets up to make sure the door is locked to bat-faced orchids, raising petals like light sails as if about to take flight, these poems make keen visual and psychological observations. The title Go Figure speaks to the book s focus on the unexpected, the strange, and the seemingly incredible so that: We name things to know where we are. Moving with the deliberate precision that is a hallmark of Armantrout s work, they limn and refract, questioning how we make sense of the world, and ultimately showing how our experience of reality is exquisitely enfolded in words. It s true things fall apart. Armantrout writes. Still, by thinking we heat ourselves up.

Sample Text

HYPER-VIGILANCE

Hilarious,

the way a crab s slender
eye-stalks
stand straight up

from its scuttling
carapace–

the way vigilance
takes many forms?

*

That bird check-marks morning
once more

like someone who gets up
to make sure

the door is locked.

*

I sound
like I know
what I m talking about.

I sound like a comedian.