Description

Christine Scanlon was born in New York City in 1971 and, except for a brief time in Montréal, has lived there ever since. She received her MFA from The New School, and is currently doing graduate work in literature at The City University of New York. A Hat on the Bed is her first book.

A Manipulation of Seams aims to probe meaning in order to get at deeper meaning. Like the physicist in her title poem, Christine Scanlon believes that “If the relationship holds/it radiates./If it endures a new second/it matters.” Everything the poet’s keen mind lights on becomes “a gentle apocalypse”: theology, (auto)biography, science, Danny Kaye, grilled cheese sandwiches. This pensive and winning book manipulates only in the sense that very fine skills are deployed with infinite care. From somewhere, Gertrude Stein is blessing this poet’s inception. Read her book; it will reward you.
—Kathleen Ossip