PoetrybyElaine Equi
November 12,20196 x9 112 pages 978-1-56689-564-4
A witty, inventive, and wry exploration of lifeabove and beyond the algorithm.
Equis poems insist that despite the fact that most of our everyday reality has been rendered accountable and computable, there is still a region of experience that escapes our GPS-mapped consciousnessan intangible realm where poetry is still possible.
About the Author
Elaine Equi's witty, aphoristic, and innovative work has become nationally and internationally known. Her book, Ripple Effect: New & Selected Poems, was a finalist for the L.A. Times Book Award andshortlistedforthe Griffin Poetry Prize. Among her other titles are Sentences and Rain, Surface Tension, Decoy, Voice-Over, which won the San Francisco State University Poetry Award, and The Cloud of Knowable Things. She teaches at New York University and in the MFA Program at The New School.
Praise forThe Intangibles
Finalist for the 2019 Big Other Book Award in PoetryHyperallergic, Favorite Poetry Collections of 2019
[E]nchantingThese poems suggest people should enjoy the fun of language while it lasts Publishers Weekly
Always count on Elaine Equis nimble gymnastics to flip the ordinary around and create something rich and strange . . . These poems do not wear their brooding hearts on their sleeves but rather flirt and banter, drawing us close before revealing their ruminative complexities.Albert Mobilio,Hyperallergic
Elaine Equi is curious about where were headed. What do we have in common after alla brand, a mini-series? Its the intangibles that fascinate, whether morphing through robotics, noticing the new featurelessness of things with citizens staring into their palms, or finding ourselves stalked by a hologram. Its the mystery of our ever-weirder world where the machines dream us. Amusement was the beneficent state Frank OHara recommended and in a post-post-reality its what Equi has in quantum leaps, in her Zen-ish DNA. This is a book for now and for the future, a panacea and antidote to the fear of the inane unknown. Equis elegant control of line, image, percolating observation is always a taut surprise. I feel better already. Inside these subtle poems, complete little universes, theres never a dull moment.Anne Waldman
Elaine Equis perfect pitch sends her wry voice in directions no other contemporary poet knows how to visit. She trims a narrative to its mad essence; she winnows lyric into a shape more giddy than aphorism, more delirious than koan. Reality, in Equis eyes, is pleasantly disrupted by wordsher words, which are regular citizens of their sentences but also strangers to all normative modes of behavior. Read The Intangibles for the tangible joy these generous epistles give. Wayne Koestenbaum
If Emily Dickinson were alive today, her name would be Elaine Equi. Each of these poem gems is a secret; to know them, simply read them. Bob Holman
Praise for Elaine Equi
Whether celebrating clones or revising Led Zeppelin, Equi melds verse with aphorism, wisdom with wicked playfulness."Entertainment Weekly
These poems, brief as they sometimes are, simply-stated as they almost always are, open up a ground, a web, of the conscious and subconscious dailiness we all experience but rarely self-examine or seek to understand.New York Journal of Books
There is a lot of fake poetry out there. Equi is real. She changes the way you look at things. You cannot fake the authenticity that informs even the most casual of her observations.David Lehman
Her spare wit has always bent toward meaning, even as it pokes and pries and resists the clichs and the customs that conversation, prose fiction, and more conventional poetry bring.Stephanie Burt
