Comments on: Pulitzer Prize Reality Check – The 2010 Poetry Winner, Rae Armantrout’s ‘Versed’ http://oneminutebookreviews.wordpress.com/2010/05/14/pulitzer-prize-reality-check-%e2%80%93-the-2010-poetry-winner-rae-armantrout%e2%80%99s-%e2%80%98versed%e2%80%99/ Janice Harayda Reviews Fiction, Nonfiction and Poetry for Adults and Children Sat, 25 May 2013 15:11:08 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: 1minutebookreviewswordpresscom http://oneminutebookreviews.wordpress.com/2010/05/14/pulitzer-prize-reality-check-%e2%80%93-the-2010-poetry-winner-rae-armantrout%e2%80%99s-%e2%80%98versed%e2%80%99/#comment-8075 Sat, 29 May 2010 04:10:11 +0000 http://oneminutebookreviews.wordpress.com/?p=19623#comment-8075 Would love to review Tinkers, and may well do it, but am on a very long library waiting list …

]]> By: bippityboppityboom http://oneminutebookreviews.wordpress.com/2010/05/14/pulitzer-prize-reality-check-%e2%80%93-the-2010-poetry-winner-rae-armantrout%e2%80%99s-%e2%80%98versed%e2%80%99/#comment-8074 Sat, 29 May 2010 03:13:42 +0000 http://oneminutebookreviews.wordpress.com/?p=19623#comment-8074 I had the same experience with “Scumble”–it is a fun, playful poem.

]]> By: bippityboppityboom http://oneminutebookreviews.wordpress.com/2010/05/14/pulitzer-prize-reality-check-%e2%80%93-the-2010-poetry-winner-rae-armantrout%e2%80%99s-%e2%80%98versed%e2%80%99/#comment-8073 Sat, 29 May 2010 03:12:15 +0000 http://oneminutebookreviews.wordpress.com/?p=19623#comment-8073 Do you plan to read / review “Tinkers”, the perfect gem that took home the fiction prize this year?

]]> By: 1minutebookreviewswordpresscom http://oneminutebookreviews.wordpress.com/2010/05/14/pulitzer-prize-reality-check-%e2%80%93-the-2010-poetry-winner-rae-armantrout%e2%80%99s-%e2%80%98versed%e2%80%99/#comment-8064 Fri, 21 May 2010 22:02:12 +0000 http://oneminutebookreviews.wordpress.com/?p=19623#comment-8064 Steve –
Didn’t edit your comment (i.e., change words) but deleted some of it for space and copyright reasons.
Jan

]]> By: yesisaidyesiwillyes http://oneminutebookreviews.wordpress.com/2010/05/14/pulitzer-prize-reality-check-%e2%80%93-the-2010-poetry-winner-rae-armantrout%e2%80%99s-%e2%80%98versed%e2%80%99/#comment-8063 Fri, 21 May 2010 19:35:57 +0000 http://oneminutebookreviews.wordpress.com/?p=19623#comment-8063 Hi Janice –

Did you somehow edit my comment? When it first appeared, it had an excerpt from one of Armantrout’s poem along with a comment on the excerpt from me. My comment was:

“The isolation, the sensation of difference and apartness, arising from (within) that last image haunts me, moves me. When I first read it, I wanted to hug somebody, and still get those feelings today, even after reading this particular poem dozens of times.”

Thanks,

Steve Fama

]]> By: 1minutebookreviewswordpresscom http://oneminutebookreviews.wordpress.com/2010/05/14/pulitzer-prize-reality-check-%e2%80%93-the-2010-poetry-winner-rae-armantrout%e2%80%99s-%e2%80%98versed%e2%80%99/#comment-8062 Fri, 21 May 2010 19:22:56 +0000 http://oneminutebookreviews.wordpress.com/?p=19623#comment-8062 Just to clarify: My concern about these poems doesn’t involve the work that they require of readers, because I like many poets who require at least as much — Geoffrey Hill, for example. My problem is that don’t evoke the emotions for me that great poems should.

But I’m glad your experience was different and appreciate your comment. Thanks.

]]> By: yesisaidyesiwillyes http://oneminutebookreviews.wordpress.com/2010/05/14/pulitzer-prize-reality-check-%e2%80%93-the-2010-poetry-winner-rae-armantrout%e2%80%99s-%e2%80%98versed%e2%80%99/#comment-8061 Fri, 21 May 2010 17:38:44 +0000 http://oneminutebookreviews.wordpress.com/?p=19623#comment-8061 Dear Janice,

Your comment that Armantrout’s poems are “detached to the point of sterility” and “don’t appeal . . . to the emotions” is at variance with my experience. Her poems deeply stir me.

Armantrout’s poems mostly are the opposite of expansive and narrative. For some, the compression and segmented (collage-like) approach present a surface hardness, requiring repeated readings. I like that kind of poetry, even if it means that a pull on the heart doesn’t always come right away. I find that having to work at it means the pull can be a good deal stronger, and last longer, than when it comes quicker …

A final thing, for now at least: there are poems, or parts of poems, in Versed that make me laugh. From memory I think of “Scumble” for instance, with its giddy joy in the erotic potential of words, or that dream-moment in “Around” in which the grim evaluation of the location where ashes (hers) will be scattered is interrupted by the notion that it’s for her husband a good place to scuba dive. The humor ties directly to emotion.

Steve Fama

]]>