Rae Armantrout
Four Poems from 'Entanglements,' with a note by the author
[The poems, below, appeared two years ago in Armantrout’s small book Entanglements, published by Wesleyan University Press and still readily available. The author’s note that follows was written specifically for Poems and Poetics, as an opening and guide to her remarkable and always mind-bending “physics-inspired writing.” (J.R.)]
Running
Let’s say the universe
is made of strings
that “vibrate” or thrash
in an effort
to minimize the area
that is the product
of their length
and their duration in time.
*
Let’s call contraction
“focus”
or “pleasure.”
*
You’ll step forward,
I know,
into the contracting
light
ready to like
anyone.
How far will you get?
You’ll be far ahead
and distracted.
By what?
I won’t see it.
I’ll be running to catch up.
I’ll know you
by your willingness.
I won’t believe
that what’s continual
is automatic
Spin
That we are composed
of dimensionless points
which nonetheless spin,
which nonetheless exist
in space,
which is a mapping
of dimensions.
*
The pundit says
the candidates’s speech
hit
“all the right points,”
hit “fed-up” but “not bitter,”
hit “not hearkening back.”
*
Light strikes our eyes
and we say, “Look there!”
Fundamentals
Why is it that
for it
to be in-
finitely large
is terrific,
but to be
infinitely small
is just
unthinkable?
The thought
of a smaller
bit inside
each bit
goes nowhere
still
has symmetry
going on
and on
about it.
Then there’s our model
in which
the fundamentals
are sound,
impenetrable nubs
So
So that nothing
rhymes with much–
or starts to
and thinks better of it.
*
Ending with “like”
or “so.”
Ending with “as if”
*
Virtual particles
carry the current
AUTHOR’S NOTE: This set was inspired by reading physics. Sometimes I remember my sources; often I don’t. I know I wrote “Running” while reading The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene. In these poems generally I try to broaden the context and deepen the emotional register beyond what was given in the source texts. For instance, the first section of “Running” is drawn primarily from Greene’s book. I remember being puzzled by the idea that subatomic strings would somehow make an effort (I realize that word was metaphorical from the get-go) to “minimize” the space-time they occupy. It sounded as if they would have liked to disappear. It sounded uncomfortable. So I tried substituting “thrash” for “vibrate.” What happens to our picture then? In the second part, I took another look and decided that “minimizing” was like contracting — which could be seen as orgasmic, pleasurable instead of painful. I guess you could say that the third section merges the impulses of the previous two. In it, I imagine pursuing a beloved into the contracting tunnel of light supposedly experienced by the dying. In the three sections of this poem, I’m applying different imaginative lenses to the same physical theory. This is typical of what I do in my physics-inspired writing.
Poems and poetics