This year’s winner for the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry is Rae Armantrout, for her book Versed.

Versed.

Rae has been writing poetry since she could put crayon to paper, is the author of numerous books of poems, and currently is a professor at UC San Diego. She is also a founding member of the language school of poetry, which can mean a good deal of things to a good many different people.

I asked a writer friend what she thought of language poetry, and in response she spontaneously spouted a language poem beginning with the word, “air-conditioner” and filling it out with words she found to be ‘pretty.’ Later she said that language poetry is, “basically like Lady Gaga. The music blows, but her outfits are so freaking cool.”

The internet offers a bit less clarity, explaining there is very little that typifies language poets besides when in time they came about and their affinity for California.

Whatever it may mean to be from the language school, I think Rae Armantrout can write a heck of a poem. Her work has a way of crawling into your head and refusing to budge until you solve the riddle you just read. I watched some video of her reading, making this experience all the more authentic and uncomfortable, because now I hear Rae Armantrout’s voice challenging me to tell her what her work is about.

Versed, was described by the Pulitzer committee as, “a book striking for its wit and linguistic inventiveness, offering poems that are often little thought-bombs detonating in the mind long after the first reading.”

I could not agree more.

Ms. Armantrout was kind enough to answer some questions for Altdaily about her work, super powers, and the world’s most beautiful flower. I hope you enjoy.

*****

Pleasure

A sleight-of-hand

equilibrium

being produced

as bees

pass one another,

a ticklish rumble

shuttling between blooms.

I’d like to think

I’m one,

no,

all of them.

*

This sense of

my senses

being mine

is what passes

life to life?

How distinguish one

light from the next?

Only distinctions can

matter.

(Canned matter.)

*

Just made up

of

tuning fork ferns,

blackbird pipe-lettes:

little golden

self-measuring

extents

*****

Could you take us through the poem “Pleasure” and tell us what is going on here?

Armantrout.

“Pleasure” seems to address questions like what/who is an individual or a thing. Is it or how is it separable from its surroundings or from others of its kind? It deals with the relation of part to whole. The poem begins with me (“the speaker”) watching seemingly identical bees go back and forth among flowers. My first impulse (common to most of us) is to track one with my eye and perhaps identify with it, but then I realize (or the speaker in the poem realizes) that it’s the system as a whole that’s attractive.

In the same vein, the second part begins with trying to imagine what people mean by reincarnation. How could one self be distinguished from another from the inside? It asks what a self is. We don’t have to think of this in terms of reincarnation though. The same questions can be asked when thinking of twins, clones, or even generations. Is the sensation of “me” and “mine” the same for everyone and, if so, what does it mean?

The third section seems a little different perhaps. I read it as asking what a moment of consciousness is, how it’s measured. I wrote it while sitting on my porch and literally looking at a fern while listening to a blackbird. My poems are often composed of immediate impressions.

Have you always wanted to be a poet?

I always wanted to write poetry. I wrote my first poems in kindergarten. It wasn’t until I went to college that I realized it was possible for living people to “be” poets. And even then I thought it was the longest of long shots. But, nonetheless, I headed for the Bay Area where I believed there might be poets – and I was right.

If you could not write, what do you think you would have done for a career?

Realistically or wishfully? I might have liked to be a drummer. I like rhythm.

Given your penchant for rhythm, are you a big fan of dancing? If so, how would you describe your dancing style?

I love to dance, but, unfortunately, I don’t really get the chance anymore. I wouldn’t describe my dancing style.

How do you describe your writing style?

I often start with a question in my mind or I begin when I feel puzzled. The poem might be a way of writing through or into that feeling. For instance, in “Pleasure” I was wondering what makes one self-consciousness different from another. There’s not much “filler” in my work. I like to bounce conflicting ideas or images off one another and see what sort of sparks fly. I’m interested in dissonance as well as consonance.

You come from the language school of poetry, yet there seems to be no one thing that typifies language poetry. Could you share your thoughts on why the tradition emerged and what it means, if anything, to be a language poet?

We are in fact quite a diverse group, but we have a few things in common. We’re baby-boomers who grew up in the era of Vietnam and Watergate. We grew up skeptical. We don’t think language is a clear window through which the world can be presented. Or, if language is a window, we’ve learned that it’s best to examine the glass and the frame.

This generation’s adult life has consisted of corporations lying to us and taking advantage of us economically, as well as the Bush administration (take that as you will). Our country has been involved in armed conflicts for over 8 years now as well, and our Gulf is full of oil.

Do you see similar skeptical artists emerging as a reaction to our times as well, or is this generation more of a passive rider?

First, I’d like to say that all people alive now are being affected by Bush’s wars, the Wall St. rip-off, the oil filling the Gulf, etc. My forthcoming book is called Money Shot.

But, yes, I do see young(er) poets writing with outrage or despair in response to recent events. The new groups of “found language” poets, the Flarf poets and the Conceptual poets such as K. Silem Mohammad and Vanessa Place, are pointing to a failed and debased public discourse and saying, “Can you believe this?” And then there are explicitly political poets such as Juliana Spahr, Claudia Rankine, and Mark Nowak.

If you could be anywhere in the world, where would it be?

I hate choices. I’d be anywhere, writing a poem. Or else, I’d be with my son in Seattle.

Why do you write?

I write so that I won’t be a passive victim – or ungrateful recipient – of what the world throws me. I write to talk back to the world. I also write to clarify problems for myself. I’m often troubled by a fleeting feeling. I track it down and try to understand it by writing.

Your latest work Versed has been recognized with a number of prestigious awards, most notably The Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. This will undoubtedly bring your work to a wider audience. Is this pure excitement for you, or is there some hesitancy as well?

I’ve very honored and pleased to have been given this recognition. That almost goes without saying. But I have qualms too. Anyone who wins a book prize is bound to think about all the other excellent books that were published that year as well as all the fine poets who never win awards. I was lucky and the lucky always feel a bit guilty. Also, this particular prize is associated with a bit of media frenzy and there’s some craziness that comes with that territory. For instance, some guy sent me a big envelope containing a blank index card and a little note. The note read, “Congratulations on your well-deserved P.P. I haven’t read your book because it isn’t on my Kindle. Please sign the card on the blank side and enclose a photo.” See what I mean?

If you had one super power what would it be?

Right now I might like to be invisible. I’m also interested in remote viewing.

What is your favorite color?

Again I hate choices. I can’t come up with just one. But your question did get me thinking. I realize that I don’t like primary colors; I prefer complex colors in deeply saturated shades. Colors that make you wonder, “Is there a name for that?” I like the name “burnt umber.”

Do you think certain words are broken?

As in no longer meaningful, ruined by overuse? Absolutely (is one) along with, of course, “awesome.” And what about the way the word “freedom” is used these days?

What do you sit down and read in your free time?

I read some of the poetry books that come in the mail. Lately I’ve enjoyed Graham Foust’s To Anacreon in Heaven, Joe Massey’s Exit North, Ben Lerner’s Mean Free Path, and Monica Youn’s Ignatz. I thought the novel that won the Pulitzer this year was very good – Tinker by Paul Harding. I also like reading popular science books. Now I’m reading The Little Book of String Theory by Steven Grubser.

What is your favorite word? Why?

I like “pernicious.” It sounds luscious and it means harmful. I’m also fond of “extrapolate,” and “culvert.”

Can you share a little bit of your writing process with us?

I keep a notebook where I write down interesting things that I see, hear, read, or think. These are snippets that might develop into poems. I’ll refine the promising ones in the notebook and then (often) I start seeing possible connections between different entries so I start finding ways to combine them. That’s about when I take it to the computer.

What is your least favorite word?

That would have to be “blurb.”

Coffee or Tea?

Coffee! Lots of it.

Who do you think is the best rock band of all time?

Well, I had a long-term thing with The Rolling Stones. I’m also very fond of Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Bob Marley, The Clash, The Eurythmics. Lately I’ve taken up Lady Gaga – but I guess she isn’t “rock and roll.” Neither are Dylan, Cohen, or Marley. So I guess that leaves me with the Stones after all.

Your poetry is simultaneously simple to read and so very difficult to grasp. Often when I start a poem I feel like I’ve walked into a trap. The words seemed so accessible that I walked right in, but quickly realize so much more is afoot. I feel my mind shift gears and directions so many times while reading your work. Is that a sensation you aim to cultivate in your readers?

I’m not really trying to manipulate the reader. I don’t approach it from that angle. (You make the reading experience sound sort of like a puzzle type video game. Fun and frustrating at the same time. I’m happy for you to have that experience, but I’m not trying to produce it.) My poems reflect my experience of the world. The world is difficult to grasp. It does come at us from many directions. I don’t cause it to be that way; I just try to deal with it.

As you are a poet, I assume you have some authority on the inherent beauty of flowers and trees. What is the most beautiful flower in your mind?

I can’t decide between verbena and columbine. I am hopelessly bi-floral.

If there was some way for you to simultaneously speak to every single person on earth, what would you say?

I’d say, “Excuse me for interrupting.”

E-readers, yea or nay?

Nay – not yet anyway. I like to make notes on texts. Sorry.

Is the internet/information age ruining language?

I don’t know. It is probably ruining our ability to concentrate.

Have you ever come across moments too beautiful or awful to write about? If so, what did you do with them?

It’s the merely satisfactory that’s impossible to write about. The beautiful and the awful are disturbing, in different ways, and so they tend to engender art. So, no I haven’t encountered anything too awful or beautiful to write about. I began the poem “Own” in an ICU within 24 hours of having major surgery to remove a cancerous tumor. I took my notebook to the hospital with me. I’m not saying that I’ll never experience anything too awful to deal with in writing though. Never say “never.”

Wittgenstein once said, “The limits of my language means the limits of my world.” Do you think he was right?

Not really. Language is important, but not that important. Animals have worlds after all. And thought is quicker than language. Thought is digital, if you will, and language is analog. In my poetry I want to bring language closer to the speed of thought.