Pulitzer Prize winning poet Rae Armantrout will be reading at the PAMLA 2025 conference with her friend and fellow poet Bob Perelman, on Saturday, November 22, from 1:10 to 2:25 pm, in the InterContinental Grand Ballroom A (on the 3rd floor).
Rae Armantrout was kind enough to entrust with us two evocative poems that she’ll be reading at the PAMLA special event, both of which are, in some ways, connected to our conference theme of “Palimpsests.” Rae shared that “there is a connection” between the poems and the palimpsest: “Layering, if nothing else.” She continued:
“Monster” is about one wave over-riding or over-writing another in the shallows—and also about trying to choose between one word and another, both flawed. These struck me as proto-palimpsests.
“Monster”
1
I almost use the word subject
because “topic”
sounds too breezy—
like wind brushing wave-tops.
I almost use the word topic
because “subject”
is top-heavy,
ponderous.
(In other words,
I stutter
and break off.)
2
One curled lip
overtopping another
and rushing
across glitter-bands and
back-suck.
One odd one
breaking sideways
and strolling
in silhouette
until overrun–
with that roar around it.
Rae Armantrout will also be reading this gem of a poem:
“Twist”
Everything looks sick,
flushed with autumn,
lurid,
someone must have said.
*
There’s a twist, a topknot
of earthworms
on our roof,
you said,
left there by crows
for their own purposes.
In “Twist” I worry that the words I’ve used to describe autumn have been used in past poems—but I use them anyway (a pseudo-palimpsest?). Then I rephrase the way someone (my partner) told me what he found on our roof. (The words “twist” and “topknot” are mine. I’ve over-written his remark.) Then there’s whatever the crows meant by depositing worms on the roof and leaving them there—something I’m not able to “read.” There are three levels of discourse here—literally. I’m looking out the window; he’s speaking from a ladder; and the crows are coming and going from the roof.
Armantrout and Perelman are two of the most engaging and important American poets working today. Describing the poems in Rae Armantrout’s latest book, Go Figure, Library Journal says, “she has honed enduring art on the ephemera that constitute a consciousness in motion through the present.” Charles Bernstein says, “Her sheer, often hilarious, ingenuity is an aesthetic triumph.” Armantrout’s 2018 book, Wobble, was a finalist for the National Book Award that year. In 2010 Versed won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and The National Book Critics Circle Award. In addition to her nearly twenty books of poetry, including Finalists, Conjure, Partly: New and Selected Poems, Itself, Just Saying, Money Shot, and the forthcoming Safe Rooms (Wesleyan, 2026), Armantrout’s poems have appeared in anthologies and journals including Poetry, Conjunctions, Lana Turner, The Nation, The New Yorker, The London Review of Books, Harpers, The Paris Review, Postmodern American Poetry: A Norton Anthology, and several editions of The Best American Poetry. Armantrout is Professor Emerita at UC San Diego.
Bob Perelman, Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Pennsylvania, has published over 15 volumes of poetry, including: Chatty Fossils (Roof Books, forthcoming in 2026); Jack and Jill in Troy (Roof Books, 2019); Iflife (Roof, 2006); Playing Bodies, in collaboration with painter Francie Shaw (Granary Books, 2004); The Future of Memory (Roof, 1998); and Ten to One: Selected Poems (Wesleyan University Press, 1999). His critical books are The Marginalization of Poetry: Language Writing and Literary History (California, 1994); The Trouble with Genius: Reading Pound, Joyce, Stein, and Zukofsky (Princeton, 1996); Modernism the Morning After (Alabama, 2017). He has edited Writing/Talks (Southern Illinois University Press, 1985), a collection of talks by poets. Perelman’s work can be heard on Penn Sound (http://www.writing.upenn.edu/pennsound); his website is: http://writing.upenn.edu/pepc/authors/perelman/. A feature on his work appears in Jacket 39 (http://jacketmagazine.com/39/index.shtml).
Please join us for this very exciting poetry reading on Saturday at 1:10 in Grand Ballroom A. But this isn’t the only poetry event we are featuring. There will also be many other riveting poetry and creative writing events at this year’s PAMLA conference. There is such a wealth of poetry that someone (we won’t say who) thought that the PA in PAMLA stood for Poetry and (Modern Language Association). That’s not entirely true—we are the Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association. But it might as well be….
To find out the days, times, and rooms of more Poetry and Creative sessions and more, go here: https://pamla.ballastacademic.com/Webforms/Schedule.aspx
Workshops and Panels
- Claim Your Story: A Poetics and the Human Form Workshop
- Publishing a Journal Article Workshop (co-sponsored by the American Association of Australasian Literary Studies)
- Publishing in Pacific Coast Philology, PAMLA’s Scholarly Journal
Creative Writing Sessions
- Creative Writing: Poetry I
- Creative Writing: Poetry II
- Creative Writing: Brief Prose I
- Creative Writing: Brief Prose II
- Creative Writing: Memoir and Creative Nonfiction I
- Creative Writing: Memoir and Creative Nonfiction II
Themed Sessions and Readings
- Echoes of the Past in Written Memories: The Latinx Experience
- Looking Back: Memory, Nostalgia, and Distortion in Creative Writing
- Elegies: A Reading
- Contemporary Filipinx Poetry in the U.S.: Forging Connections to Our Languages and Histories
- Three Contemporary Poets on the Legacy of Robinson Jeffers: Challengers of Oblivion
- PAMLA Poetry Salon
Special Events
- San Francisco and Beyond: A Thursday Poetry Reading
- San Francisco and Beyond: A Saturday Poetry Reading
- Haiku Party: Featuring Maxine Hong Kingston, Marilyn Chin, and Chun Yu
- A Reading and Creative Conversation with Clarence Major
Join us in San Francisco for four days of creative community, dialogue, and inspiration. Whether you’re an emerging writer or a seasoned author, PAMLA 2025 offers a welcoming space to share your voice and engage with others shaping the future of literary expression.