Word groups in angular configurations, characters stressed together as a puppet show, a portrait without mug shots.

Jena Osman is the author of The Character (Beacon Press, 1998) and coeditor of the magazine Chain.


"The extraordinary inventiveness and partidularity of this writing make the common ways of proposing a world vividly apparent. The modus of our statement is the determinant of our powers. Viva Jena Osman."

--Robert Creeley


"exciting and discovery"

--Leslie Scalapino


"That we get to follow Jena Osman into her theatre of invention is an exhilarating pleasure of the first order."

--Ann Lauterbach


"Whether exploring the possibilities of new forms or imagining a theatrical space for writing, Jena Osman keeps her focus on crafting poems that are consummately articulate in their precise registers and their intricate measures. With The Character, Osman comes onstage to take her place as one of the most inventive and reflective poets of her generation."

--Charles Bernstein