“Even the chairs of To the Bramble and the Briar are enchantments: the two Hepplewhites broken during a fantastic brawl between Abraham Lincoln and Fredrick Douglass, the Windsor chair ‘upon which the president sat to think,’ the chair lowered into a well wherein he ‘passed a pleasant afternoon reading.’ The real enchantment here is, of course, Lincoln animated by war, robots, asteroids, shark attacks, and all else Steve Scafidi conjures in these irreverent new poems. To the Bramble and the Briar is a sublime, inimitable achievement.” —Terrance Hayes, author of Lighthead: Poems Steve Scafidi, a cabinet maker, is the author of two books of poetry: For Love of Common Words and Sparks from a Nine-Pound Hammer.