Sentences and Rain

Elaine Equi

• Publisher: Coffee House Press
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781566894210
• eBook ISBN: 9781566894265
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: American Poetry
• Index: Literature

Whether celebrating clones or revising Led Zeppelin, Equi melds verse with aphorism, wisdom with wicked playfulness."— Entertainment Weekly

Equi's poems are under the breath asides from your cleverest friend—witty, thoughtful, and wry.

SLIGHT

A slight implies
if not an insult
(real or imagined)
at least something
unpleasant --
a slight cold,
a slight headache.
No one ever says:
"You make me slightly happy."
Although this, in fact,
is often the case.

Widely published and anthologized, Elaine Equi 's work has appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry, The American Poetry Review, Nation, and numerous volumes of The Best American Poetry.

Contents

• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication

1. Spontaneous Generation
2. Cardboard Figures in a Landscape
3. In Black and White
4. If I Have Just One Word
5. The Dark Age of Summer
6. Umbrella Photo Poems
7. Sentences and Rain
8. Royal Feathers
9. Numeric Values
10. Cut to the Chase
11. Jaillight
12. Yo y Tu
13. In Search of the Lost Diminutive
14. Slight
15. Dear Martyr
16. Let’s Do Lunch
17. Shoulder to the Grindstone
18. Murmur and Motion
19. Dear Ovid
20. Pathos
21. A Story Begins
22. Games of Medieval Sadness
23. Imbibing
24. A Blue Humming
25. A Date with an Undertaker
26. The Dizzy Staircase
27. Reznikoff’s Clocks
28. Time Traveler’s Potlatch
29. Higher Power
30. Distant Relatives
31. The Honeycomb of Sleep
32. The Ones You Meet on the Way Up
33. Ode to Distraction
34. Repetition and Duration
35. The Repairman
36. Black Bag
37. Vanilla Orchids
38. Darkness Adds Beauty
39. Do You Think a Photocopy of a Snowflake Is More Beautiful than the Original?
40. Something’s Coming
41. Varieties of Fire in Hilda Morley
42. Three Unrelated
43. Restaurant Art
44. Caught in a Downpour
45. Get In
46. Library of E
47. Library of J
48. Some
49. Metallic
50. Scrabble with the Illuminati
51. Blue Jay Way
52. Bardo Boulevard
53. C’mon, Really This Is Bullshit
54. Trees Rehearsing
55. The Courtyard
56. Backward Glance
57. The Lives of Statues
58. Better Is Better than Not Better
59. Happy Birthday, Doc!
60. Resounding
61. Zukofsky Revision
62. Becomes
63. A Medium-Rare Serenade
64. Serial Seeing
65. Literary Lipsticks
66. Haiku Centos
67. Bill Brandt
68. Phantom Anthem
69. The Winner
70. McCabe & Mrs. Miller
71. Pegasus
72. Muffin of Sunsets
73. I Never Seem to Arrive
74. By the River of White Noise
75. Stationary Yet Adrift

• Notes
• Funder Acknowledgments
• The Publisher’s Circle of Coffee House Press
• About the Author

Spontaneous Generation

Luminous flank

cut from darkness —

floating free

as a new century

where the young

are implacable

and the old are crazy

and do as they please.

How did a silent movie

give birth to a nation?

How did a mouse, a shirt,

and a few grains

of wheat grow up

to be the president?

Cardboard Figures in a Landscape

A truck goes by.

It sounds like a truck

full of boxes.

Heavy things

getting jostled,

sliding around

on top of ea...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Spontaneous Generation
• Cardboard Figures in a Landscape
• In Black and White
• If I Have Just One Word
• The Dark Age of Summer
• Umbrella Photo Poems
• Sentences and Rain
• Royal Feathers
• Numeric Values
• Cut to the Chase
• Jaillight
• Yo y Tu
• In Search of the Lost Diminutive
• Slight
• Dear Martyr
• Let’s Do Lunch
• Shoulder to the Grindstone
• Murmur and Motion
• Dear Ovid
• Pathos
• A Story Begins
• Games of Medieval Sadness
• Imbibing
• A Blue Humming
• A Date with an Undertaker
• The Dizzy Staircase
• Reznikoff’s Clocks
• Time Traveler’s Potlatch
• Higher Power
• Distant Relatives
• The Honeycomb of Sleep
• The Ones You Meet on the Way Up
• Ode to Distraction
• Repetition and Duration
• The Repairman
• Black Bag
• Vanilla Orchids
• Darkness Adds Beauty
• Do You Think a Photocopy of a Snowflake Is More Beautiful than the Original?
• Something’s Coming
• Varieties of Fire in Hilda Morley
• Three Unrelated
• Restaurant Art
• Caught in a Downpour
• Get In
• Library of E
• Library of J
• Some
• Metallic
• Scrabble with the Illuminati
• Blue Jay Way
• Bardo Boulevard
• C’mon, Really This Is Bullshit
• Trees Rehearsing
• The Courtyard
• Backward Glance
• The Lives of Statues
• Better Is Better than Not Better
• Happy Birthday, Doc!
• Resounding
• Zukofsky Revision
• Becomes
• A Medium-Rare Serenade
• Serial Seeing
• Literary Lipsticks
• Haiku Centos
• Bill Brandt
• Phantom Anthem
• The Winner
• McCabe & Mrs. Miller
• Pegasus
• Muffin of Sunsets
• I Never Seem to Arrive
• By the River of White Noise
• Stationary Yet Adrift
• Notes
• Funder Acknowledgments
• The Publisher’s Circle of Coffee House Press
• About the Author