The Republic of Self is a meditation on both the public and private American self. Elizabeth Powell's serious yet sexy and entertaining poems attempt to reconcile the divisions, diversions, and prospects of the self as we know it. Throughout her spirited investigation the poet enlists poems in prose––within the larger, more lyrical narration––to comment on the self's predicament, much as one of Shakespeare's fools might comment upon a play. Indeed, the self is a fool of sorts, as the poems infer through their wit, gravity, wistfulness, and desires.