FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Elaine Equi winner of the 1998 Poetry Center Book Award

(Minneapolis, February 1, 1999) The Poetry Center of San Francisco State University has announced Elaine Equi winner of the 1998 Poetry Center Book Award for her collection of poems Voice-Over. This year’s award was judged by the celebrated poet and critic, Thom Gunn, whose collected poems were published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux in 1994.

In describing the award-winning book, Thom Gunn said:

"Elaine Equi has that individuality that comes from not caring if you are like other people or not. Fastidiously unwasteful, her style is remarkably consistent, and yet can accommodate different kinds of poems-from the assemblages she creates out of Lorine Niedecker’s correspondence to the Psychic Readers Network. This is a distinguished and enjoyable book."

Synthesizing 20 years of influences, from pop culture to gender to literary heroes, Elaine Equi constructs a collage of voices-undoubtedly American, exquisitely her own. These poems are not so much about appearances and reality as they are about the many layers that cloud reality, infiltrate it, and ultimately alter it.

Elaine Equi is the author of several poetry collections, including Surface Tension and Decoy. A resident of New York City, she teaches at The New School, The Writer’s Voice, and City College. She is also a senior editor for Conjunctions magazine.

The Book Award has been given by the Poetry Center since 1980 to an outstanding book of poems published in the current year. Previous winners include Alicia Suskind Ostriker, Yusef Komunyakaa, Sharon Olds, Carol Snow, and Robert Wrigley.

Review copies, author photos, and author interviews are available upon request. Please fax requests to Jim Cihlar, Marketing Director, or Jana Robbins, Marketing Assistant at 612-338-4004.