In English
we place a noun
meaning fixed purpose
before our verbs
to create the future
tense.
Here, in the private life
my team invents,
I’m in a floodlit kitchen
like the set
of an old-time ad
for Tide
and I am chopping
something.
Isn’t this the past
perfect?
Should I feel nostalgic?
This corn is highly
leveraged
and I’m wearing
a pink slip.
Source: Poetry (March 2013).
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This poem originally appeared in the March 2013 issue of Poetry magazine
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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