steveatwaywords's review
emotional
mysterious
reflective
fast-paced
3.0
Oblique? Obtuse? An extreme juxtaposition of the micro and universe? A heavy-handed deferment of referents? Yup. All of this, sometimes set to be obtuse, to deliberately obfuscate so that readers do not know fully (or with any familiarity) where they are, all while dropping loosely-assembled verse minimally on each page.
Much of the poetry is off-putting, to be sure. Once or twice I imagined a 1970s scene of teenagers passing around a joint and riffing these stanzas.
And yet there is much to Armantrout's work, even then, to admire. Here are speakers searching for connections, something meaningful between a stray hand gesture and a neutron star, between words which distantly resonate in likeness, between a memory and micron. Occasionally, even, they're found.
Much of the poetry is off-putting, to be sure. Once or twice I imagined a 1970s scene of teenagers passing around a joint and riffing these stanzas.
And yet there is much to Armantrout's work, even then, to admire. Here are speakers searching for connections, something meaningful between a stray hand gesture and a neutron star, between words which distantly resonate in likeness, between a memory and micron. Occasionally, even, they're found.
rebeccavalley's review against another edition
4.0
Lots of beautiful lines in this collection & I like the sparse style of these poems. I tend to not love the more Language-poety parts of this collection - the dangling sentences and poems that felt so dense I couldn’t wade through them if I tried. But so many poems sang here, it’s worth a read.
catwithabook's review against another edition
5.0
4.5
Definitely need to revisit this
pretty brilliant
Definitely need to revisit this
pretty brilliant
billil1957's review
5.0
Pretty sure I didn't even begin to understand these poems but I still think they're magical.
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