Caroline's Response to Armantrout

I have to say that overall, Armantrout was not one of my most favorite poets. However, much of my problem with her at first was that I felt like I didn't know who she was, like I wasn't ever given a fair chance to get to know her. We talked about this in class, about how her poetic style inhibits any real voice or character to form through the poems. I think this really frustrated me, especially after all of the other poets we have read, particularly Merwin. I felt like I was missing out on a major part of the experience that is reading poetry. Now, having finished the book, two things have helped me to appreciate Armantrout more than I thought I would. The first is simply that I've acclimated to her style and can see how artistic it really is. The other is much more interesting and happened when I came across the poem "Around" on page 67.

Something happens during this poem that doesn't seem to happen in any other place in the collection, at least not for me. Here, in this one poem that begins the section "Dark Matter", I began to gain a sense for Armantrout as a person, as someone more than just a language poet.

In this poem, Armantrout writes, "Chuck and I are pleased/ to have found a spot/ where my ashes can be scattered" (11-13). All of a sudden there is a name, a situation, an emotion. This sentence descends upon us like a ton of bricks, almost without warning, as if to mimic death itself. The first stanza of this poem looks much like any other Armantrout poem, scare in word count, and arranged in a specific way on the page. This stanza, however, appears more like our traditional idea of poetry aesthetics. It is one, unified stanza of almost equal length lines, containing complete and understandable sentences. It's as if Armantrout can't turn this specfici idea into language poetry, as if it requires full sentences and plain poetics in order to be conveyed to us.

This is an absolutely beautiful poem that allows us to see Armantrout in a new, personable light. She continues, "Chuck sees places/ where he might snorkel./ We're being shown through/ by a sort of realtor./ We're interested but can't get her/ to fix the price" (18-23). There's something so human about this stanza. I can't really even fully explain why is affected me so much, but it felt like an important moment between poet and reader. The rest of the poem is more of her language poetry style and it is beautiful and interesting all on its own, but to me, this traditional-style stanza mattered much more in the context of this collection. It is here, and perhaps only here, that we really get a sense for Armantrout. We get to see something vulnerable in her laid out plainly on the page. There is no trickery, no puzzle to solve, we don't have to work for it at all. Armantrout finally openly invites us into her life, even if just for a stanza.

In the end I think it was worth it to struggle with this poet. She has a lot to offer and I certainly feel like I accomplished something in completing the collection.