Wednesday 12 January 2011

Rae Armantrout's Versed, second selection

Here is a selection of passages from the second section/half of the book, titled "Dark Matter." Versed has entranced me with its meticulously honed lyricism and intelligence; I recommend it most highly.


Time is made from swatches
of heaven and hell.

If we're not killing it,
we're hungry.

last two stanzas of "Simple"


The impossible woman,

part igneous,
part surge.

from "Resounding"


Each actor's face
seems to have survived
the same brave battle

to remain in character.
They're posed
on the rubble

used to indicate
the past.

It turns out
this is heaven.

the second section of "The Racket"


In dreams, the words
speak themselves.

last stanza of "Left"


The spread
of vicious talent contests
mimics the selection
of those best adapted
to the stage
of service industry capitalism.

first section of "The Light"


The present
is a sentimental favorite,
with its heady mix
of grandiosity
and abjection,
truncated,
framed.

second section of "Apartment"



Once we believed the bees,
moving as attention does,

settling and lifting
from blue identicals,

were the picture
of eternity.

first section of "Still"


God was momentum then,
that impatience
with interruption,

from "Hoop"


I'm looking for a
heart to heart,

a rhyme

between the blankness of my
"my"

and the blue emptiness

second and final section of "Someone"




Rae Armantrout's Versed can be purchased from The Book Depository for just £7.24, with free shipping.

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