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“... In the first placethe idea wasto gaugehow far or nearcertain hotspotson my closed eyelidswere from one anotherand from me –to put them in perspective.Some part of meis still dealing with this,but now ‘Edgyand Cerebral’have been addedto my favouritesalong with ‘Hilariousand Heartbreaking’.The new jobis to hitch‘opposites’to a central pivot ...”

“... To convey great effort and mild reluctance, one groans briefly when sitting up in bed. This is sometimes known as prayer.             * Ignore the wind chimes. They’re a bad example.             * To stand beneath or walk behind – to comprehend! – to grab wildly at surrounding objects.             * Some grab at attention by quipping, ‘I don’t care ...”

“... Value Added The way orchid splits the difference with hot pink, say, in the hanging plastic crystal – how an increased level of saturation can come across as reticence or even as retraction. There, where it changes tack – the as in the ‘come across as’ – put your tongue on that. ‘A Child Is Being Beaten’ Sign in car window: It’s not about us, it’s about Him ...”

“... 1It could have started like this.My mother took me to fabric shops when I was a kid.I would wander through the tall bolts dazed, readingfortunes in the colours.2Whitepapier-mâchéof the mock-orange floweron its many stems.Lavender, as an afterthought, necrotic –carried interest.Ochrelike sunset in LA,like dehydration.The popular mauve-greywhich blendsindifference with innocence ...”

“... InstructionWere you surprised to learnthat you could swapan ‘i’ for an eye,and ‘a’ for an apple?That’s the lure.Later, you maywant to pray.*You may be leftto think your wayfrom moment to momentwithout being toldwhat a moment is,if it’s something solid.*The mad hear languagespeak itselfand are humble before it.They receive instruction.*The child in her cribturns her head restlessly,says, ‘aaah, aaah’like an engine left running ...”

“... Pretty Little I’m not lonely because I have secrets; I’m lonely because words can’t bring the past into the present (which amounts to the same thing).         * Jack Rabbit and the Lonely Present is the title of a book I almost wrote         * I’m lonely because you’re sure you’ve heard something like this everywhere before ...”

“...                         1Dears,the backwards-facing S,a decoration in the iron rail,was here when I came,with its extra curlicuesat each end,and a miniatureversion of itselflike a foetusaffixed to its middle.I’m telling you more, perhaps,than you need to know.The sun on the rail’sinner curvesis a private matter,something like love,despite the roarof the nearby freeway ...”

“... The Blue CarRain began to speckle the pavementThat is known as an establishing shot.*We claim things happenin the pastto prove we have survived them.The idea is that the past is sealedand cannot be tampered with –like an ideaor a locket.*We count to oneon a locketwhile a blue car passesheaded west.*The constant rain stoppedand the clouds liftedfor a moment ...”

“... FinalistNothing to see here.Pine cones litterthe gutters.Whose turn is itto blow on the mirror,mama?*Each pushes forwardin her wild eagernessto take partin a ritual.‘Is this that thingabout fireflies?’Maybe.*We use similes to showthings are connected –and they are,just not in the ways we say.*A hole in fresh dirtsurrounded by orange conesinto whicha crow peers,hops sideways,then peers again ...”

“... Keepers 1. On ‘Buried Alive’, possessions can’t be lost or found. They can’t be exchanged. They’re negotiated as one negotiates a landfill. 2. In the militarised evening, Boeing touts its service to ‘our troops’. We’re shown soldiers pinned down. One is strapped to a pallet – ready for take-off? 3. In the currency market, I’m the judge of a talent show or beauty pageant in which the contestants are moments of my life ...”

“... Rivets‘You are not your thoughts.’Find the still point,the naked bulb,the white peonyunfoldingone moreinner ringwhile not beingexactly open.An animal needssomething to watch.*What I sawas a formationof fighter jetsin the distancewas, instead,a blow-upof rivetson a panel truck.*Thinking is hard,but thoughts just happenbecause of the nearrhymingof sparks ...”

“... By​ 1979, when Rae Armantrout published her second book, The Invention of Hunger, with Lyn Hejinian’s Tuumba Press, she was already what much of the literary world would soon learn to call a ‘language poet’. Like Hejinian, like their Bay Area friend and ally Ron Silliman, and like the writers from the East Coast who ran the magazine L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E, Armantrout sought a recalcitrant, even opaque, way of writing that could get out from under the assumptions, conventions and restrictions of (among other things) capitalism, patriarchy, Romantic lyric, transparent exposition and prose sense ...”

“... those who look closely, there are gradations of stillness). Reading these lines, I’m reminded of Rae Armantrout, whose influence can also be felt elsewhere in Kingdomland: ‘Being able to look at water soothes the anxious emptiness between thoughts.’If the act of noticing offers a momentary distraction from inner turmoil, it also seems to adumbrate ...”

“... in effect from the Language poets published by Sun & Moon (she taught at UC San Diego alongside Rae Armantrout) or others in her generational cohort, like Michael Palmer or her sister Susan Howe. But one senses that the intention is different. She never rejected first-person experience as a basis of her lyrics; Robert Lowell’s Notebook poems were an ...”

“... became known in the 1980s as a champion of the language poets: Charles Bernstein, Lyn Hejinian, Rae Armantrout, Steve McCaffery, Ron Silliman, Susan Howe, Bruce Andrews and perhaps a dozen others, who first published during the 1970s in a brace of little magazines, one of which bore the all too catchy name L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E. Often – too often – seen ...”