Hannah Sullivan is a scholar in the field of literary language, who recently published her debut poetry collection.

Sporting a PhD in English and American Literature from Harvard, Sullivan is passionate about how authors write and revise. She studies the process of innovation, and how style can be reinterpreted. Her first book, ‘The Work of Revision’, explores the coming about of major works in English-language modernism, like fiction by Henry James, Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce and Virginia Woolf, and poetry by T. S. Eliot and W. H. Auden. She links the new technology of the typewriter, which makes it easier to make changes in texts, to a bold change in literary style and length.

Length is an interesting factor in her first poetry collection, as well. ‘Three Poems’ consists, as the title suggests, of only three works. However, the poems are much longer than is conventional in modern poetry. The first poem is about New York, the second is about repetition, and the third is about the death of a father and the birth of a child. Within the experimental trio, her style shifts between commentary and satire, between comedy and tragedy, and she uses various forms, chunks of prose poetry and irregular rhyming techniques. Large parts are in the second person, but sometimes she moves to first. A minute eye for detail and perspective are what brings a strength to these three poems. She intimately addresses everything from fragmentary impressions in a fresh beatnik style to a heartfelt account of loss and grief. The order of the works makes us move inwards – from being in a large city to returning home, to experiencing changes in the close family dynamics, all delivered from a unique perspective.