Rae Armantrout's scumbling pinky

Remember when C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien used to hang out at the Arm & Trout pub in Oxford? Good times. Anyways, Rae Armantrout - whose  Pulitzer prize-winning collection Versed runs the gamut from thoughts on the undead to the erotic -  is known as San Diego’s most explosive poet.   In an interview with the Voice of San Diego, she discusses why her poems are considered "little thought-bombs detonating in the mind long after the first reading."

From the Voice:

Tell me about one of your most well-known poems, "Scumble." It's sexy and has a sensuality about it. I remember reading it and thinking, this is kind of dirty!

Yes, it is dirty, but there are no dirty words in it!

There are erotics of language -- words can be a pleasure to say if you like them. Another thing it's about is the way people often transfer their interest in genital sex onto something else, like high heels. People fetishize.

I'm making a fetish of these words like "scumble," "pinky" and "extrapolate." I pick them because they sound dirty. And I present themselves as someone who would secretly get off on these words. It's funny -- an absurd exaggeration of what goes on in life all the time . . .