The Clean Shirt of It marks the first English translation of a full-length poetry title by acclaimed Brazilian poet Paulo Henriques Britto. As translator Idra Novey writes in her introduction, "No other contemporary Brazilian poets write like Britto. At least not with such a keen sense of the relationship between form and content, or pop culture and high art." Paulo Henriques Britto has received Brazil's most prestigious prizes for literature and translation. He lives in Rio de Janeiro, where he teaches at Catholic University. Idra Novey lives in New York City. She received the 2005 Poetry Society of America New York Chapbook Fellowship.