Go Figure

In her precise latest, Armantrout (Finalists) addresses the limits of language during a precarious historical moment. This theme is captured decisively in the opening poem, “Here I Go”: “There’s no way to explain/ how faultlessly I want to write/ about how pointless all this is// ...like this ongoing attempt/ to catalog the world/ by latching each thing/ to the last/ memory it calls up.// Nothing recalls/ the new cat-6 haboob.” Armantrout loses none of her usual playfulness as she insistently probes for meaning in a time of catastrophe. Short, focused poems address topics ranging from the connection between beauty and significance to the sickening regularity of mass shootings in America. Other subjects are more innocuous, with often humorous imagery: a cauliflower head is “made of/ little noggins,” while a palm frond “shimmies/ like a tambourine.” In “Flame,” Armantrout slyly communicates that there is, in fact, no end to language, even as the apocalypse seems nigh: “In the midst of the evident collapse,/ I’m bored. What is there left/ to say, I say.” Armantrout’s love of language and the joy she brings to shaping it make this a welcome balm for uncertain times. (Aug.)