Curious are the workings of history and governments, the relations between the sexes, the behavior of animals, the life of objects, the labors of art, and the transformations of the imagination. In exploring these subjects, Jeanne Marie Beaumont's poems in Curious Conduct pursue and develop their own mode of investigation, a way into their subjects whether it be by interrogation, time travel, anthropomorphism or other conductive strategies. Jeanne Marie Beaumont's first book,Placebo Effects (W.W. Norton), was selected by William Matthews as a winner in the 1997 National Poetry Series. For seven years she was publisher and co-editor of the literary magazineAmerican Letters & Commentary. Currently, Beaumont teaches creative writing at Rutgers University.