Book description
The poems in Money Shot are forensic. Just as the money shot in porn is
proof of the male orgasm, these poems explore questions of revelation
and concealment. What is seen, what is hidden, and how do we know? Money
Shot's investigation of these questions takes on a particular urgency
because it occurs in the context of the suddenly revealed market
manipulation and subsequent "great recession" of 2008-2009. In
these poems, Rae Armantrout searches for new ways to organize
information. What can be made manifest? What constitutes proof? Do we
"know it when we see it"? Looking at sex, botany, cosmology,
and death through the dark lens of "disaster capitalism,"
Armantrout finds evidence of betrayal, grounds for rebellion, moments of
possibility, and even pleasure, in a time of sudden scarcity and
relentless greed. This stunning follow-up to Versed--winner of the
Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, and a
finalist for the National Book Award--is a wonderfully stringent
exploration of how deeply our experience of everyday life is embedded in
capitalism. "Armantrout's work is distinguished by, among other
things, a sense of economy and elegant precision."--David Wheatley,
Times Literary Supplement RAE ARMANTROUT is a professor of writing in
the literature department at the University of California at San Diego,
and the author of ten books of poetry.
