Synopses & Reviews
“Elaine Equi’s narrow lines are like the rungs of a ladder that one ascends while one is descending them. It’s a motion like that in Wang Wei’s lines, ‘Stars / float up / toward dawn,’ which she quotes in her cento, ‘Wang Wei’s Moon.’ Or, as she beautifully puts it, ‘Discreetly a breeze enters the room.’”—John Ashbery
Ripple Effect showcases thirty years of Elaine Equi’s investigations into our cultural obsessions. Vivid, savvy, and accessible, her poems can transform almost anything—a list, a diary entry, advertising speak—into sophisticated, germane elixirs of pop culture and high art. Widely published, these poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The American Poetry Review, and numerous volumes of The Best American Poetry.
Synopsis
"Elaine Equi's narrow lines are like the rungs of a ladder that one ascends while one is descending them. It's a motion like that in Wang Wei's lines, 'Stars / float up / toward dawn, ' which she quotes in her cento, 'Wang Wei's Moon.' Or, as she beautifully puts it, 'Discreetly a breeze enters the room.'"--John Ashbery
Ripple Effect showcases thirty years of Elaine Equi's investigations into our cultural obsessions. Vivid, savvy, and accessible, her poems can transform almost anything--a list, a diary entry, advertising speak--into sophisticated, germane elixirs of pop culture and high art. Widely published, these poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The American Poetry Review, and numerous volumes of The Best American Poetry.
Synopsis
"Deft, delicate, subversive, and more quotable than any American poet who comes to mind."--August Kleinzahler
Synopsis
Poetry. In RIPPLE EFFECT: NEW AND SELECTED POEMS, Elaine Equi consolidates thirty years of practicing and perfecting her unique brand of expansive minimalism. As a lover of clarity, wit, and elegance, the aphorism, proverb, haiku, and caption are among her favorite modes of expression. Her poems are quick, yet they also linger long after the first reading because in each of them she has distilled a wide range of literary influences from classical Chinese, to Surrealist, Objectivist, concrete poetry, New York School and more. Pop and approachable, eruidte and subtle--Equi continues to dazzle with her sophisticated and sly wit.
About the Author
Equi's succinct, witty, and innovative work has been widely published, appearing in the The New Yorker, Norton's Postmodern American Poetry, and four recent volumes of The Best American Poetry. A central figure in Chicago's poetics scene during the 70s and 80s, she now lives in New York where she teaches at City College, New School and NYU.