Rae Armantrout has published eight books of poetry: Extremities (The Figures, 1978), The Invention of Hunger (Tuumba, 1979), Precedence (Burning Deck, 1985), Necromance (Sun And Moon, 1991), Couverture (a selected in French translation, Les Cahiers de Royaumont, 1991), Made To Seem (Sun And Moon, 1995), The Pretext (Green Integer, 2001), and Veil: New and Selected Poems (Wesleyan, 2001). A prose memoir, True, was published by Atelos in 1998. She is currently [May 2002] completing Up To Speed, a collection of poems, and an as yet untitled manuscript of collected prose. Armantrout's poetry has appeared in many anthologies, including In The American Tree (National Poetry Foundation), Language Poetries (New Directions), Postmodern American Poetry: A Norton Anthology (Norton), Out of Everywhere (Reality Street), Moving Borders (Talisman), Best American Poetry of 1989, 2001 and 2002 (Scribners), Poems for the Millennium, Vol. 2 (University of California), and American Women Poets of the 21st Century (Wesleyan). She teaches writing at the University of California, San Diego. Buy her books here. There are links to some work online here and here. 1. What is the first poem you ever loved? Why? I remember my mother reading me a children's nonsense poem called "When the Dinky-Bird is Singing in the Amfalula Tree (scroll down a little)." That could be it. I loved the way it fused the ordinary with the bizarre or at least the unknown. 2. What is something/someone non-“literary” you read which may surprise your peers/colleagues? Why do you read it/them? I read books on physics and cosmology such as Brian Greene's book The Fabric of the Cosmos or Julian Barbour's The End of Time. I like them precisely because of the way they boggle my mind. I'm not sure that will surprise anyone. 3. How important is philosophy to your writing? Why? I think my poems often start with a question or at least a sense of puzzlement over what something means or why something is (as it is). So they start where philosophy starts. Once in awhile (rarely) I've been inspired directly by reading philosophy: Agamben, Deleuze. But I'm more often prompted to write by either popular culture or scientific theory. 4. Who are some of your favorite non-Anglo-American writers? Why? Hmm. I love Ponge because of the quality of attention he pays to the non-human world and for the precision of his language. 5. Do you read a lot of poetry? If so, how important is it to your writing? I don't see how anyone can be a poet without reading poetry. It has to become almost like a first language. I do read lots of poetry. I read a lot of contemporary stuff and I go back to old favorites like Dickinson, Williams, Oppen and Niedecker. 6. What is something which your peers/colleagues may assume you’ve read but haven’t? Why haven’t you? Ouch. There is no way not to get in trouble with this question. Let's just say that I sometimes have trouble reaching the last page of book-length long poems. 7. How would you explain what a poem is to my seven year old? Poetry is the conversation words are having with each other. No one knows you're eavesdropping. 8. Do you believe in a Role for the Poet? If so, how does it differ from the Role of the Citizen? Let's have a nation of Citizen-Poets. When I listen to public discourse, it often seems to me that people don't really hear what they're saying. Poetry should cause people to think twice about the words in their mouths. Listen longer. 9. Word associations (the first word which comes to mind; be honest): Lemon**Tea Chiseled**Rock I**Don’t Of**Off Form**Lyn Hejinian 10. What is the relationship between the text and the body in your writing? I don't really know.