Poice (for Police)

Members of law enforcement are busy every day catching criminals and harassing innocent civilians, neither of whom seem to appreciate their efforts very much, often preferring to portray them as either clueless, feckless, ruthless, or reckless. Whether it's overreaching with tasers and strip searches, or simply busting their brass buttons with a few too many donuts, the word poise may not be the first one that comes to mind when trying to describe your average police officer. Cops do tend to look a little more dignified, though, when riding on a horse, which for the purposes of this blog entry we might call "equipoise," although its actual meaning can be found in any online dictionary. And then there's its synonym counterpoise, which ... oh wait, I already did the donut joke! Counterpoise, by the way, is the title of a library review journal for the alternative press, begun by the late Charles Willett in 1997 and now recently defunct. It enjoyed a good fifteen-year run, however, during which time a few of my own book reviews were published there. Poice (for police) turns up only twice in OhioLINK and 25 times in WorldCat, so it should be pretty easy to keep your equilibrium while tracking down and correcting these miscreants in your own library's catalog.

(NYC police officer on horse, 27 March 2006, from Wikimedia Commons.)

Carol Reid