Josh Lefkowitz received an Avery Hopwood Award for Poetry at the University of Michigan. His poems and essays have been published in The New York Times, Washington Square Review, Electric Literature, The Millions, The Rumpus, Contrary, Shooter Literary Magazine (UK), Southword Journal (Ireland), Broadview Press (Canada), and many other places. He has also recorded pieces for NPR and the BBC, and his poems have been read aloud on All Things Considered and WNYC.

Using the Surrealist technique of unexpected juxtaposition, Joseph Cornell's best-known works are glass-fronted boxes into which he placed and arranged Victorian bric-a-brac, old photographs, dime-store trinkets, and other found elements. Generally referred to as "shadow boxes," the resulting pieces are dream-like miniature tableaux that inspire the viewer to see each component in a new light. Cornell often used the shadow boxes to address recurrent themes of interest such as childhood, space, and birds, and they represented an escape of sorts for their creator, who was famously reclusive. Among the earliest examples of assemblage, the shadow boxes also helped give rise to a host of other Modern and Contemporary American art forms, from Installation art to Fluxus boxes.