Everybody Knows: A Reading with Poet Rae Armantrout

Join Artspace New Haven and artistic duo Aeron Bergman & Alejandra Salinas for a poetry reading “Everybody Knows” with Rae Armantrout within their series “The Commons: towards reclaiming collective power,” followed by a public Q&A with Armantrout and artistic duo Bergman & Salinas. As Leonard Cohen sings, “Everybody knows that the dice are loaded; everybody rolls with their fingers crossed.” Everybody knows that rapacious greed is despoiling the planet. Armantrout will read new poems that explore tipping points, situations that threaten disaster and call for change. Tea, coffee, and cookies will be provided for a reception to follow the program. Armantrout’s recent book Finalists (Wesleyan 2021) will be available for purchase.

“Everybody Knows: A Reading with Poet Rae Armantrout” is part of the free public programming series “The Commons: Towards Reclaiming Collective Power,” conceptualized by Bergman & Salinas as attendant works within their exhibition Against the General Good/ Contra el Bien General, on view September 17–December 3, 2022. For in-person programs, Artspace encourages mask-wearing and social distancing to prevent the spread of COVID-19 within our community. 

Rae Armantrout is the author of fifteen books of poems, including Finalists (Wesleyan 2022), Conjure, a finalist for the PEN/Voelcker award (Wesleyan 2020), Wobble (2018), a finalist for the National Book Award, and Versed (2009) which won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award in 2010. She is the current judge of the Yale Younger Poet award. Her work has appeared in many magazines and anthologies including, The London Review of Books, The New Yorker, Conjunctions, The Paris Review, BOMB, The Brooklyn Rail, American Scholar, The New York Review of Books, Postmodern American Poetry: a Norton Anthology, and several editions of The Best American Poetry. Armantrout is professor emerita at UC San Diego. She currently lives in Everett, WA.