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The Oldest Word for Dawn: New and Selected Poems
From one of our most universally admired a generous selection from his five acclaimed books of poetry, and an outstanding group of new poems.
From the outset, Brad Leithauser has displayed a venturesome taste for quirky patterns, innovative designs sprung loose from traditional forms. In The Oldest Word for Dawn, we encounter a sonnet in one-syllable lines (“Post-Coitum Tristesse”), a clanging rhyme-mad tribute to the music of Tin Pan Alley (“A Good List”), intricate buried rhyme schemes (“In Minako Wada’s House”), autobiography spun through parodies of Frost and Keats and Omar Khayyám (“Two Summer Jobs”).
In a new poem, “Earlier,” the poet investigates a kind of What is the oldest word for dawn in any language? The pursuit ultimately descends into the roots of speech, the genesis of art. “Earlier” is part of a sequence devoted to prehistoric the cave paintings of Altamira, the disappearance of the Neanderthals, the poet’s journey with his teenage daughter to excavate a triceratops skeleton in Montana . . .
The author of six novels as well, Leithauser not surprisingly brings to his verse a flair for compelling a fateful romantic encounter on a streetcar (“1944: Purple Heart”); the mesmerizing arrival of television in a quiet Detroit neighborhood (“Not Lunar Exactly”); two boys heedlessly, joyfully bidding permanent farewell to a beloved sister (“Emigrant’s Story”).
The Oldest Word for Dawn reveals Brad Leithauser as a poet of surpassing tenderness and exactitude, a poet whose work, at sixty, fulfills the promise noted by James Merrill on the publication of his first “The observations glisten, the feelings ring true. These poems by a young, unostentatious craftsman are made to something very like perfection. No one should overlook them.”
From the outset, Brad Leithauser has displayed a venturesome taste for quirky patterns, innovative designs sprung loose from traditional forms. In The Oldest Word for Dawn, we encounter a sonnet in one-syllable lines (“Post-Coitum Tristesse”), a clanging rhyme-mad tribute to the music of Tin Pan Alley (“A Good List”), intricate buried rhyme schemes (“In Minako Wada’s House”), autobiography spun through parodies of Frost and Keats and Omar Khayyám (“Two Summer Jobs”).
In a new poem, “Earlier,” the poet investigates a kind of What is the oldest word for dawn in any language? The pursuit ultimately descends into the roots of speech, the genesis of art. “Earlier” is part of a sequence devoted to prehistoric the cave paintings of Altamira, the disappearance of the Neanderthals, the poet’s journey with his teenage daughter to excavate a triceratops skeleton in Montana . . .
The author of six novels as well, Leithauser not surprisingly brings to his verse a flair for compelling a fateful romantic encounter on a streetcar (“1944: Purple Heart”); the mesmerizing arrival of television in a quiet Detroit neighborhood (“Not Lunar Exactly”); two boys heedlessly, joyfully bidding permanent farewell to a beloved sister (“Emigrant’s Story”).
The Oldest Word for Dawn reveals Brad Leithauser as a poet of surpassing tenderness and exactitude, a poet whose work, at sixty, fulfills the promise noted by James Merrill on the publication of his first “The observations glisten, the feelings ring true. These poems by a young, unostentatious craftsman are made to something very like perfection. No one should overlook them.”
- GenresPoetry
256 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2013
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18 people want to read
About the author
Brad Leithauser
55 books64 followersBRAD LEITHAUSER is a widely acclaimed poet and novelist and the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including a MacArthur Fellowship. This is his seventeenth book. He is a professor in the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University and divides his time between Baltimore and Amherst.
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October 17, 2015
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Globe - "Well - what should anyone wish for in blowing candles out but that the light might last?"
Undergone - "After his wife left, he converted her study into The-Next-Week Room. He set up a folding table, where he laid out his tasks..."
Angel - "... in the form of a dragonfly, an apparition whose coloring, were it not real, would scarcely be possible..."
Globe - "Well - what should anyone wish for in blowing candles out but that the light might last?"
Undergone - "After his wife left, he converted her study into The-Next-Week Room. He set up a folding table, where he laid out his tasks..."
Angel - "... in the form of a dragonfly, an apparition whose coloring, were it not real, would scarcely be possible..."
Displaying 1 of 1 review