I Wore Poetry in the Shape of a Girl

On Sunday, before most of us were awake, Leah Umansky was pulling a dress made out of her poetry collection, Domestic Uncertainties, over her head. She and three others — Rebecca Lawniczak, Gabriel Don and Holly Messit (l-r) — traipsed around the Met’s antiquities in their paper creations fashioned by Joseph A. W. Quintela. Quintela’s #bookdresses have appeared at The Strand and Project Space Envelope in the LES.

Paper dresses made a splash at the Lancaster Lit Fest in 2010 when author Claire Messey wore a fairy tale bridal gown. Will we see one of these at Lit Crawl in September?

Also, can you sit down in one of those? “I can’t sit in mine but it’s a month old,” Umansky told us. “I’m afraid of ruining it. Really, when I stop being so cautious it might get more flexible.”

How many months old is your poetry dress?

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— Erika Anderson is one-half of The Outlet’s editorial team. (The other half is here.)