Decoy

by Elaine Equi

Overview

Subversive and witty, Equi adeptly slips around corners and peers through keyholes, ultimately proving that the best poems take us by surprise. "Exceedingly delicate work, infused with a sly and bawdy humor.... leaves the reader eager for more.... one of the most enjoyable and rewarding books of poetry."—The Nation

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781566890267
Publisher:	Coffee House Press
Publication date:	11/01/1994
Series:	Sun and Moon Classics; 44
Pages:	80
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.20(d)

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.

Editorial Reviews

Equi's (Surface Tension) second collection emerges as a provocative mixture of postmodern eclecticism and graceful wit. These poems are quietly ironic in tone, employing short, sparse lines that at times seem almost reminiscent of the stark elegance of haiku. Particularly admirable is Equi's ability to recycle the odd bits and scraps of her world and weld them into poetry-she can blithely write about Rilke, Rolling Rock beer, UFO's, Rimbaud, and the cooking show on channel 17 in practically the same breath. Throughout the volume Equi experiments with language; the elusive and artificial nature of language, speech and writing forms a prevalent and recurring theme in Decoy. At times, however, the wordplay can become a bit too self-consciously clever, and there is a dangerous tendency for some of the poems to flatten out into mere strings of aphorisms. There is an understated quirkiness about these poems that is ultimately compelling, however, and in the best of them Equi successfully merges the serious and absurd in language that is by turns ironic, frivolous and lyrical. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Although New York poet Equi has roots in the Language poets, she frequently springs free from them, exhibiting a kind of lyricism and warmth. Her fresh new collection is, however, ultimately uneven. The poems are most successful when they hang together in some sort of framework, as in "In the Mail Today," which describes, piece by piece, the contents of a day's mail delivery. Too often, however, she runs off course; lines and stanzas are unrelated and therefore impenetrable and incomprehensible-probably intentionally so. A poem becomes a "found-object" collage of words, as in "After Herrick," where she writes "words/for meat/give melody over rocks." The reader struggles to make connections between lines and images like these and finally concludes that they do not exist. Still, this highly experimental poet's work is full of surprises and worth the effort some of these poems require. Recommended for libraries with contemporary poetry collections.-Judy Clarence, California State Univ. Lib., Hayward

Library Journal