‘Click and Clone’ is poetry for 21st century

Elaine Equi's "Click and Clone" is poetry for the 21st century.

The poems in "Click and Clone" are so electric, so unique and so much fun to read that we can only imagine how much fun Equi had in writing them. In the opening poem, "Follow Me," she wryly states, "I know better/than to go punching holes/in the universe," and yet she boldly punches holes in our perceptions of reality.

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Her incisive wit and elegant nod at contemporary technology combine to create a poetry that is not only flamboyant but essential. As such, the poems in this volume reflect the influences of modernism, surrealism, cinema and the work of other poets such as Barbara Guest. Equi makes impressive use of surrealist collage, minimalist narrative and innovative prose poems.

The poem "Side Effects May Include" provides us with a humorous list of the potential side effects of Equi's poems and concludes with the warning, "Do not read these poems if you are pregnant/or nursing without consulting a doctor first."

"Clones Come Alive!" is the first in a series of poems on the subject of cloning. The poem is spare and effective, ending with the exhortation, "Come take your place in the book of creation!/Clones come alive!"

The poem "Role Reversal" is a deceptively simple meditation on the idea of art as a reflection of reality. Equi uses the examples of Stendhal and Flaubert, two realist novelists, to make the point that the reality celebrated by these two writers no longer exists due to advances in technology. The world is more complex. The world is so complex that art can no longer imitate life:

Once reality was dumb and brutish-

in need of art for elevation.

But it's changed-

grown baroque and multifaceted.

Today we can no longer take reality for granted.

Now art is the simpleton.

Equi's prose poems are equally profound. "Instant Past" reflects on the speaker of the poem today and as she was in the past: "I surmise that my problems in the present amuse she who is me in this version of the past." The poem concludes with Equi's signature use of the element of surprise. The speaker imagines what the former self says: "You don't know how it feels," is what I think she says, "to have a whole country pulled out from under you. History happens fast!"

Several of the poems in the volume consist of a single line. In "Led Zeppelin Revision," the poet simply states, "That stairway only leads halfway to heaven."

At select intervals Equi punctuates the book with moments of humor. In "The Lady with the Alligator Purse," she writes, "I always knew/I wanted to be her.//A bag lady-/but a rich one."

Perhaps the most exquisite poem in the volume is "The Collected," which is dedicated to the now deceased poet Barbara Guest. In this poem, Equi directly addresses Guest about her poetry: "I like the feeling of incompleteness,/the icy unresolve/(some will say lack of closure)/in your poems." Equi then asks, "Are words thought/or afterthought//or something in between/that evaporates yet lingers?" She answers herself: "A poem is made of words and spaces-//but can the fiction of words and space/exchange places?" She calls this exchange between words and space "fields of a bright decoding."

With this phrase Equi captures the essence of postmodern avant-garde poetry. She further defines "fields of a bright decoding" as "the selvage of blue/remnants worked into unfinished sky." With these words Equi clarifies the aesthetic of the current era of poetry.

As a whole, Equi's "Click and Clone" pays tribute to a postmodern aesthetic which acknowledges the dilemma poets face when attempting to reflect contemporary reality in one's work. Reality with all its technology has outrun us. Poetry has never been more difficult to write. The beauty of Equi's work is that she succeeds where others fail with the "bright decoding" of reality.

- Sonja James is the author of "Baiting the Hook" (the Bunny & the Crocodile Press, 1999), "Children of the Moon" (Argonne House Press, 2004), and "Calling Old Ghosts to Supper" (Finishing Line Press, 2013).

Poets are invited to submit recent books for review consideration. Contact Sonja James at sonjajames@earthlink.net.