Elaine Kahn's poems touch me somewhere deep.--Kim Gordon
In Women in Public, the debut full-length collection by poet/musician
Elaine Kahn, personal philosophies and collective admissions are put
through the corporeal grinder, harnessing the sensual as a medium for
the cerebral in order to negotiate the feminine condition of being
simultaneously othered and consumed. By turns seductive and
self-deprecating, Women in Public navigates a world where the erotics
of the body and mind do battle against the constructs that would demean
and define them, using lyric, fragment, humor, and repetition to create
a space flexible enough to hold the many contradictions of reality.
Where expectations and desires can be piled too easily upon the body,
Kahn digs in her heels, writing in attempt to liberate physical form
from society's confines.
Praise for Women in Public:
'Do you think that you are greater than a mom?' This is an intensely
honest, honestly intense poetry. Humorous, carnal, accusatory,
celebratory--Women in Public tells me to get lost so I do. When I find
myself later, I'm re-reading Women in Public.--Rod Smith
In these exhilarating poems, Elaine Kahn shoots from the groin,
championing a ferociousness that rages against asperity while playfully
seducing the reader to misbehave. Hers is a realm where oceans beat
against genitals, and Hannah Wilke warms the earth. I don't want to let
go of Women in Public for I want its boldness all to myself.--Dodie
Bellamy
About the Author:
Musician, poet, artist, Elaine Kahn was born in Evanston, Illinois
and is currently based in Oakland, California. She received an MFA from
the Iowa Writers' Workshop and a BA from California College of the Arts.
Kahn is the author of three poetry chapbooks, A Voluptuous Dream During
an Eclipse (2012), Customer (2010), and Radiant Bottle Caps (2008),
and is a contributor to Art Papers. Her music project, Horsebladder, has
toured widely throughout the U.S. and Canada. She is also co-founder of
the feminist puppet troop P. Splash Collective and managing editor of
the small press Flowers & Cream.
