The Search Engine

Formal agility plays a fast game of tag with modern urban women's issues in The Search Engine, the slippery and absolutely contemporary debut from Kathleen Ossip, which slips non sequiturs and famous names (from Woody Allen to the Waldorf) into its sonnets, syllabics, macaronics, and other high-spirited accomplishments, including a Proven al ballade about Plath and Sexton. Picked for the APR prize by Derek Walcott (who confesses both awe and bafflement in his introduction), Ossip's sometimes bitter comedy might please readers of otherwise quite varied tastes. In exuberant, sometimes cynical sequences, ""the angel of the/ suburbs sells indelible stuff"" and ""a guy with soulful brown/ peepers hires a pert gal who wavers.""