Poetry Meets Physics: Poet Rae Armantrout Reading and in Conversation with Physicist Ben Buchler. Street Theatre, Canberra, Thursday 19 September 2024

• Published in: Australian humanities review no. 73; pp. 1 - 41
• Main Authors: Armantrout, Rae, Buchler, Ben, Smith, Russell
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Bundoora Association for the Study of Australian Literature (ASAL) 01.02.2025
• Subjects: American literature; Anthologies; Audiences; Contemporary literature; Dickinson, Emily (1830-1886); Language; Lyric poetry; Poetics; Poetry; Poets; Postmodernism; Quantum physics; Verbal communication; Williams, William Carlos (1883-1963)
• ISSN: 1325-8338; 1325-8338
• DOI: 10.56449/14625216

[...]in the best scientific tradition, we can hazard a hypothesis: that we will learn something about how scientific concepts-and especially the mind-bending strangeness of quantum physics-can inform the work of a contemporary poet, and, contrariwise, how contemporary poetry can perhaps prompt scientists to reflect on their models of reality and their knowledge of it, its underlying concepts and, dare I say it, its meanings and its metaphors. After the audience Q and A, we'll wind up, but I'll mention now that copies of Rae's most recent book Go Figure, as well other books of hers, will be available to buy in the foyer, and Rae will be staying around afterwards to sign copies. Rae Armantrout has published more than two dozen books, and among her many awards and prizes are the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award for her 2009 collection Versed. Paul Hoover, in his note on Rae Armantrout in his anthology Postmodern American Poetry, writes, 'she has been associated with language poetry despite beingsuspicious of the term, which [and here he quotes one of Rae's essays] 'seems to imply division between language and experience, thought and feeling, inner and outer' [Armantrout, 'Why Don't Women' 31]' (Hoover 429).