Poetry. THE NEXT IN LINE, Christopher Schmidt’s provocative debut, tracks the poet’s coming of age with a sparking language reflecting New York City’s speed and crush. Tartly seductive, these poems admit an erotic pessimism overcome by a desiring temperament too in love with life’s eccentricities to brood. By turns glamorously elusive and arousingly direct, THE NEXT IN LINE cuts through poetic cant with the knowledge of what sentiments exact. Schmidt studies and teaches at the City University of New York and lives in Brooklyn.