The Way

By Rae Armantrout b. 1947 Rae Armantrout

Card in pew pocket

announces,

“I am here.”

I made only one statement

because of a bad winter.

Grease is the word; grease

is the way

I am feeling.

Real life emergencies or

flubbing behind the scenes.

As a child,

I was abandoned

in a story

made of trees.

Here’s the small

gasp

of this clearing

come “upon” “again”

Source: Veil: New and Selected Poems (Wesleyan University Press, 2001)

ABOUT THIS POEM

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Poet Rae Armantrout b. 1947

POET’S REGION U.S., Western

SCHOOL / PERIOD Language Poetry

Subjects Social Commentaries, Life Choices

Poetic Terms Free Verse

More about this poem

Rae Armantrout, one of the founding members of the West Coast group of Language poets, stands apart from other Language poets in her lyrical voice and her commitment to the interior and the domestic. Her short-lined poems are often concerned with dismantling conventions of memory, pop culture, science, and mothering, and these unsparing interrogations are often streaked with wit. “You can hold the various elements of my poems in . . .

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