Slide Rule

If ""our dear librarian is a devious machine"" then ""by force of needle not need but able/ do i explain myself,"" in Jen Hofer's debut Slide Rule. Hofer, who has edited an anthology of poetry by Mexican women due next year from the University of Pittsburgh, splits her time between Los Angeles and Mexico City, which may explain how parts of this ""vivacious mismatch enclave missive"" came to be. Divided into five parts, including two titled ""The Denotative Sky"" and one titled ""Holocaust"" (""There is an art museum./ There is a water pipe./ There is no weathervane.""), the book takes readers on a lexically intensive tour of ""strategies to make the skeletal stick still.""