In September 2024, Rae Armantrout, the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet from the United States, visited Australia and spoke with prominent Australian poet Kate Lilley. Below is an edited transcript of their conversation, introduced by Monique Rooney from the Australian National University. The complete interview can be viewed on the Australian National University’s Art and Social Sciences YouTube channel.
Monique Rooney: I’m speaking to you from the unceded lands of the Ngambri and Ngunnawal peoples, who, along with other First Nations communities, have endured European invasion and lived on these lands for thousands of years. I pay my respects to them and all those who live modestly on Country as carers and custodians. This event was made possible by funding from the Research School of Humanities and the Arts, Australian National University (ANU). I sincerely thank them for their generous support of this event and Rae Armantrout’s visit to Australia. I also thank Julieanne Lamond, Rosalind Smith, and the staff of the School of Literature Languages and Linguistics for their invaluable support. Unfortunately, our ANU English colleague, Amelia Dale, cannot chair today’s session due to Covid-19. But my heartfelt thanks go to her for all her efforts organising this event.
My name is Monique Rooney, and I teach and research in the English program at ANU. I also co-direct the Center for Australian Literary Cultures (CALC) with Julieanne Lamond. CALC is a research centre focused on raising the visibility of Australian literature locally and internationally through an interdisciplinary approach connecting scholars worldwide. In this spirit of promoting international literary dialogue, I’m delighted to introduce this conversation and reading between two exceptional poets, Rae Armantrout from the United States and Kate Lilley from Australia.
United States-based poet Rae Armantrout has published more than two dozen books, mainly of poetry but also of prose. I’ve been reading her most recent book, True, today. Rae’s distinguished body of poetry includes Finalists (2022), Wobble (2018), Partly: New and Selected Poems (2016), Just Saying (2013), Money Shot (2011), and Versed (2010), which won both the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and the National Book Critics Circle Award in 2010. Her latest book, Go Figure (2024), has just been published by Wesleyan University Press.
Australian, Kate Lilley is a queer poet, scholar, and Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of Sydney. Kate’s influence in bringing avant-garde U.S. poets into the curriculum has been far-reaching. Her acclaimed poetry collections include Versary (2002), Ladylike (2012), and Tilt (2018) have earned her widespread recognition, with Tilt winning the Victorian Premier’s Award for Poetry. Kate is also a scholar and editor known for her editions of early modern writer Margaret Cavendish: The Blazing World and Other Writings (Penguin Classics, 1994) and the Selected Poems of Dorothy Hewett, of her mother (UWA Press, 2010). Rae and Kate will be in conversation.
Kate Lilley: I’m speaking to you from Gadigal Land. I’m delighted to be here. I’m sorry I’m not with Rae, in person. Circumstances have conspired. But it’s not a bad or inappropriate way, given that mediation is one of the overriding concerns of Rae’s work: the sort of ‘thorough-goingness’ of mediation in the ‘languaging’ of the world. I thought a good way to start is for Rae to read a group of poems from her new book, Go Figure, because I think there’s nothing better than just hearing the poems read aloud. I know so many of you will not have read these poems, but you can at least take them in – to some extent, and then we’ll start talking about them. Rae’s going to read seven poems that I’ve selected. If you know Rae’s work, you know it’s characteristically short, and she is a mistress of the magic of the short poem. ‘Magic’ is her phrase, not ‘mistress’ [laughs]. So, thank you, Rae.
Rae Armantrout: Thank you, Kate. First, thank you to Monique and Amelia for bringing me here. I was enjoying my visit very much, but then my husband contracted Covid-19. I may have it, I don’t know. My throat is weird today, and I might cough a little. I tested negative, but I may cough anyway.
At the Moment I need a moment, a taut, equivocal poem, another chance to practice my balance, one foot against my inner knee and both arms out. — - — Sun still on the wisteria. The question is how still. Now hop! Child's play When she speaks for the bubbles, she uses falsetto. “Oh, no!” they cry as they leave the wand. “Oh, no!” already in air quotes. Escape Velocity Out the window, lilac’s, lavender swag above long leaves, split down the middle as we are— mirror-image at the core— matter and its opposite number, bad actors both. Can't handle intimacy, But here we are, comfy as hell.
