Overview
Person Under renders a careful portrait of two sisters and their mother. In this book-length erasure of guardianship renewal papers, Paige Thomas retrieves fragments of her family's voices to depose a legal document's authority. With each act of obstruction informed by interviews, original illustrations, and meticulously tracked collage materials, this debut visual poetry collection disrupts the finality of official language as three women transcend the pages that defined their lives.
Full Product Details
Author: Paige Thomas
Publisher: Finishing Line Press
Imprint: Finishing Line Press
Dimensions:
Width: 15.20cm
, Height: 0.50cm
, Length: 22.90cm
Weight: 0.141kg
ISBN: 9798899903168
Pages: 70
Publication Date: 23 January 2026
Audience:
General/trade
,
General
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Available To Order
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Reviews
Paige Thomas's stunning debut Person Under is a work of pure magic. In Thomas's talented hands, this impersonal, reductive guardianship document transforms into an intimate, compassionate family portrait. And like many family portraits, it's complicated: Thomas pairs language and image to offer us a remarkable, relatable collage of radiance and playfulness alongside concern and confusion. The book's many layers-both textual and emotional-will magically reveal more to you on each read. There's so much to admire in Person Under: it will challenge your assumptions, deepen your empathy, and jump-start your heart. -Jennifer Richter, author of Dear Future To read Person Under is to see a faceless bureaucracy pitted against a fearless daughter. Taken one by one, each portrait in this book offers an intimate mystery vibrant with the mosaic of desire and menace. What's thrilling about this being a first book is that Paige Thomas doesn't shy from asking elemental, urgent questions. What are life's chances? What is called for in family? Must the personal always be political? Can hope be pulled from violent language? By fashioning the visual with the literary, Thomas offers her belief that art and poetry can be strange, beautiful, and heartbreaking all at once, making Person Under a prismatic, haunting portrayal of love. -David Biespiel, author of A Self-Portrait in the Year of the High Commission on Love In Person Under, Paige Thomas begins with an ordinary legal document and ends with something magical. Altering a guardianship form with erasure, collage, and original drawings, Thomas creates a (literally) layered meditation on disability and family, love and power. A beautiful, lucid dream of a book. -George Estreich, author of The Shape of the Eye: A Memoir
Author Information
Paige Thomas is an award-winning writer and visual artist whose creative work has received support from the Regional Arts & Culture Council, Spring Creek Project, 21ten Theatre, and elsewhere. Some of her writing can be found in New Delta Review, Diode, and Columbia Journal while her visual work has been featured in exhibitions around Portland, OR. She received an MFA from Oregon State University. Person Under is her debut visual poetry collection.
