Description
Poetry. Alysse Kathleen McCanna's debut poetry collection interrogates the self through the concept of pentimento. An art historical term, pentimento occurs when traces of previous work are revealed, indicating the artist changed aspects of her composition during the process of creation. Employing a playful exploration of layers, alteration, and history, these poems map the myriad paths that unfold before us, and catalogue our navigation through lust, love, and loss. Also the Italian word for repentance, pentimento is made visible using infrared reflectography; in these poems, McCanna shines a light upon the lives we paint ourselves into, and the revisions and revelations we find there. What's exposed is a refractive, multidimensional portrait of selfhood, rendered in twin layers of grief and hope.
Author Bio
Alysse Kathleen McCanna is currently pursuing her PhD in English at Oklahoma State University. She is Associate Editor of Pilgrimage Magazine and received her MFA in Writing and Literature from Bennington College in 2015. Her work has appeared in or is forthcoming from poets.org, Lunch Ticket, Barrow Street, The Boiler, Boulevard, Midwestern Gothic, and other journals. She lives in Stillwater, OK, where she and her husband bask in the heat of the prairie and tend to their growing menagerie.
Author City: STILLWATER, OK USA