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Voice-Over
Synthesizing twenty years of influencess, Equi constructs a collage of voices--undoubtedly American, exquisitely her own.
- GenresPoetry
96 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 1998
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
May 13, 2015
She knows how to write poetry. It just didn't affect me much.
June 12, 2020
Every word matters in this collection. It's all so concise. It's funny, it's touching, it's full of centos and collages. I'm an admirer of the short poem and Equi does it so well throughout her career and this collection is full of examples. That being said, two of my favorites in this collection are average length: "Revelation" (for Charles Simic), and Hinge, featured here:
Nothing needs us
but we need
a lot of reassurance
before we can reassure
those things we thought
we needed that they exist too.
Making room for them
is like making a room for them.
That's why often we draw doors
on what we want, and after
a while, add windows too.
We love our sky.
we love our blueprints.
Their reassuring color
that gives a feeling of similarity
where one does not necessarily exist.
Nothing needs us
but we need
a lot of reassurance
before we can reassure
those things we thought
we needed that they exist too.
Making room for them
is like making a room for them.
That's why often we draw doors
on what we want, and after
a while, add windows too.
We love our sky.
we love our blueprints.
Their reassuring color
that gives a feeling of similarity
where one does not necessarily exist.
August 4, 2020
This is the kind of book I enjoy reading in the afternoon. Lots of lines that can be pulled out as aphorisms. Witty and incisive looks into consumer culture. Lovely and light and fun, with a hidden undercurrent of disaster.
And the descriptions, so apt, so original. I would like to give this book a 4.5 since it is better than most books I mark as 4's, but not quite the genius that it takes for me to assign a 5.
A sample of Elaine Equi's aphorims:
Culture's mirrors are all one way
What is the sky anyway, / but a reply to the earth.
The poem is a small machine made of God.
In poems we shine, // and though we say them with conviction, / the words are never really ours for keeps.
What speech shares with birds: both live in the air.
1/3/08 Okay, I am changing my rating of this book to five points. It's a few weeks later and this book is still on my mind, and the books of poetry I've been reading in the interim don't get close to giving me the pleasure this one did, so it does in fact deserve five stars.
And the descriptions, so apt, so original. I would like to give this book a 4.5 since it is better than most books I mark as 4's, but not quite the genius that it takes for me to assign a 5.
A sample of Elaine Equi's aphorims:
Culture's mirrors are all one way
What is the sky anyway, / but a reply to the earth.
The poem is a small machine made of God.
In poems we shine, // and though we say them with conviction, / the words are never really ours for keeps.
What speech shares with birds: both live in the air.
1/3/08 Okay, I am changing my rating of this book to five points. It's a few weeks later and this book is still on my mind, and the books of poetry I've been reading in the interim don't get close to giving me the pleasure this one did, so it does in fact deserve five stars.
November 10, 2007
i love what she's thinking.
September 1, 2015
Recommended by a friend, and very good. A keeper for later rereading.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews