Poetry. In SURFACE TENSION, the twentieth century metroplex comes alive in poems which bounce off of the coating of culture that stretches across present day America. With her closely cropped style, Equi transforms language into a form of peripheral vision scanning the cultural landscape. Liberace, cartoons, shopping malls, and Dairy Queens are inspiration for these poems as well as the muses of Rimbaud, Robbe-Grillet, Maria Callas, and Martha Graham. "What's amazing about Elaine Equi's poetry is that it takes the best of abstraction and the maximum of figuration—city, family, and sex—and makes a fresh synthesis. One feels that she is the most hopeful poet alive"—David Shapiro.

Author City: NEW YORK, NY USA

Elaine Equi's last book RIPPLE EFFECT: NEW AND SELECTED POEMS was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award and on the short list for Canada's Griffin Poetry Prize. She lives in New York.