Description
Book SynopsisIn her new collection, renowned publisher and poet Rebecca Wolff voyages in the myopia of American consumer consciousness—erotic regard, spiritual FOMO, gentrification, branding—without destination.
Labyrinthine in their paradoxical musings and incisive in their witty recriminations, these poems grapple with the hubris and dysmorphia of the soul. Wolff is a poet that is unafraid to be a querent, not only of sages (“I only hang out with people / who are psychic / anything else is a / waste of precious / continuity”) but of language itself (“How else is one to know how to proceed / How is one to make a motion against— / electric word life”) In Slight Return, the journey is infinite and elusive—aspiring in the best way toward a point of diminishing returns and withholding any promise of a comfortable landing.
Trade Review"[Wolff’s poems] are stylistic and tonal shapeshifters. Hip, contemplative, and dark and resistant to the hunky-dory, the New Agey, and the prescriptive, they’re unnerving, funny, and occasionally subversive."
— Bookforum"Wolff's [poetry has] nervy, controlled lyric bursts....Nearing yet swerving from bathos, [she is a poet with] a gift for shrewd summings-up."
—Chicago Tribune"In a space where "It all happens so fast—/ ovulation, creation, cremation," a variety of poses, or figments, may seem all that is left. Wolff's poems manage to make embracing them seem like a genuine possibility."
—Publishers Weekly
