The Mail from Anywhere

by Brad Leithauser

Brad Leithauser's first collection of poems to be published in the UK, Between Leaps (1987), received wide critical acclaim, many of the reviewers noticing his technical skill, sensitivity to the natural world, and mastery of the meditative form. In this second collection all those facets are evident and are employed to achieve even greater effect. The poems again deal in detail with the natural world, and many draw on his experience of living for the past year in Iceland.

Genres: Poetry

64 pages, Paperback

First published September 12, 1990

About the author

BRAD 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.

Reviews

[Nick Pierce · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wildly different from the first collection I read - voice is more mature, settled into a style that still resonates but keeps you removed and off-kilter in (mostly) natural environments. Really appreciate the techniques at play, but didn't stir the soul like Hundreds of Fireflies for me.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

I actually enjoy Brad Leithauser's writing a lot, both his fiction and his poetry. But it's his wife's - Mary Jo Salter's - poetry that really gets under my skin.

(Then there's the time I waste speculating on what it must be like to grow up in a household where both your parents are poets. One imagines their daughter waiting until she's twelve before finally uttering her first sentence, a fully polished gem...)