 | |
| Author | Rae Armantrout |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Series | Wesleyan Poetry Series |
| Genre | Poetry |
| Publisher | Wesleyan University Press |
Publication date | February 2009 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Pages | 136 |
| ISBN | 978-0-8195-6879-3 |
| 811/.54 22[1] | |
| LC Class | PS3551.R455 V47 2009[1] |
| Preceded by | Next Life (2007) |
| Followed by | Money Shot (2011) |
Versed is a book of poetry written byRae Armantrout and published byWesleyan University Press in 2009 (see2009 in poetry). It won the2009 National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry and the2010 Pulitzer Prizefor Poetry after being named a finalist for theNational Book Award.[2][3] Armantrout is only the third poet to win two out of these three awards in one year.[4]
As part of a lead-in to their awards announcement,[5]NBCC board member James Marcus calledVersed a collection of "vigilant, often beautiful poems [that] seem to reset the reader’s mental instrumentation—what Armantrout calls the 'whirligig / of attention, / the figuring and / reconfiguring / of charges / among orbits / (obits) / that has taken forever.'"[6]
According to thePulitzer Prize Board,Versed is a "book striking for its wit and linguistic inventiveness, offering poems that are often little thought-bombs detonating in the mind long after the first reading."[7]