Source:
AP/San Jose MercuryCalifornia poet stunned by Pulitzer Prize
The Associated Press
Posted: 04/12/2010 03:33:18 PM PDT
Updated: 04/12/2010 04:51:10 PM PDT
SAN DIEGO—A California poet won a 2010 Pulitzer Prize on Monday for a book of poetry that she feared she would never finish after she was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer.
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The first half of the book, published by Wesleyan University Press, focuses on the dark forces gripping the United States as it fought the war against Iraq, she said. The second half looks at the dark forces taking hold of her own life after Armantrout was diagnosed in 2006 with adrenal cortical cancer.
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The Pulitzer committee called the 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."
"I love that," she said, laughing. "That's very flattering and exactly what I wanted it to be—a little thought-bomb. It sounds dangerous."
Read more:
http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_14869644?nclick_check=1
Pulitzer citation:
For a distinguished volume of original verse by an American author, Ten thousand dollars ($10,000).
Awarded to “Versed,” by Rae Armantrout (Wesleyan University Press), 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.