Brad Leithauser
Encyclopedia
Brad E. Leithauser is an American poet
, novel
ist, essay
ist, and teacher. After serving as the Emily Dickinson
Lecturer in the Humanities at Mount Holyoke College
and visiting professor at the MFA Program for Poets & Writers
at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, he is now on faculty at The Johns Hopkins University
in the writing seminars department.
. He is an alumnus of the Cranbrook Kingswood School and a graduate of Harvard College
and Harvard Law School
. He worked for three years as a research fellow at the Kyoto
Comparative Law Center in Japan
. Leithauser has lived in Japan, Italy, England, Iceland, and France. His wife, the poet Mary Jo Salter
, is also a professor at Mount Holyoke. As of January, 2007, both Leithauser and his wife will have permanently joined the faculty of Johns Hopkins University
in Baltimore, Maryland.
Leithauser's work has appeared in The New York Times
, The New York Review of Books
, Time
, and The New Yorker
.
He is on the editorial board of the literary magazine The Common
, based at Amherst College
.
Leithauser is the uncle and godfather of Hamilton Leithauser, lead singer of The Walkmen
.
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
, novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
ist, essay
Essay
An essay is a piece of writing which is often written from an author's personal point of view. Essays can consist of a number of elements, including: literary criticism, political manifestos, learned arguments, observations of daily life, recollections, and reflections of the author. The definition...
ist, and teacher. After serving as the Emily Dickinson
Emily Dickinson
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was an American poet. Born in Amherst, Massachusetts, to a successful family with strong community ties, she lived a mostly introverted and reclusive life...
Lecturer in the Humanities at Mount Holyoke College
Mount Holyoke College
Mount Holyoke College is a liberal arts college for women in South Hadley, Massachusetts. It was the first member of the Seven Sisters colleges, and served as a model for some of the others...
and visiting professor at the MFA Program for Poets & Writers
MFA Program for Poets & Writers
The MFA Program for Poets & Writers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst is a graduate creative writing program.-History:The MFA Program for Poets & Writers was founded in the 1960s by poet Joseph Langland and is part of the English Department at the University of Massachusetts...
at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, he is now on faculty at The Johns Hopkins University
Johns Hopkins University
The Johns Hopkins University, commonly referred to as Johns Hopkins, JHU, or simply Hopkins, is a private research university based in Baltimore, Maryland, United States...
in the writing seminars department.
Biography
Leithauser was born in 1953 in Detroit, MichiganMichigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
. He is an alumnus of the Cranbrook Kingswood School and a graduate of Harvard College
Harvard College
Harvard College, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is one of two schools within Harvard University granting undergraduate degrees...
and Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University. Located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it is the oldest continually-operating law school in the United States and is home to the largest academic law library in the world. The school is routinely ranked by the U.S...
. He worked for three years as a research fellow at the Kyoto
Kyoto
is a city in the central part of the island of Honshū, Japan. It has a population close to 1.5 million. Formerly the imperial capital of Japan, it is now the capital of Kyoto Prefecture, as well as a major part of the Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto metropolitan area.-History:...
Comparative Law Center in Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
. Leithauser has lived in Japan, Italy, England, Iceland, and France. His wife, the poet Mary Jo Salter
Mary Jo Salter
Mary Jo Salter is an American poet, a coeditor of The Norton Anthology of Poetry and a professor in the Writing Seminars program at Johns Hopkins University.-Life:...
, is also a professor at Mount Holyoke. As of January, 2007, both Leithauser and his wife will have permanently joined the faculty of Johns Hopkins University
Johns Hopkins University
The Johns Hopkins University, commonly referred to as Johns Hopkins, JHU, or simply Hopkins, is a private research university based in Baltimore, Maryland, United States...
in Baltimore, Maryland.
Leithauser's work has appeared in The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, The New York Review of Books
The New York Review of Books
The New York Review of Books is a fortnightly magazine with articles on literature, culture and current affairs. Published in New York City, it takes as its point of departure that the discussion of important books is itself an indispensable literary activity...
, Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
, and The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
.
He is on the editorial board of the literary magazine The Common
The Common (Magazine)
The Common is a nonprofit biannual magazine based at Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts. The magazine publishes stories, poems, essays, and images centered around "a modern sense of place." - History :...
, based at Amherst College
Amherst College
Amherst College is a private liberal arts college located in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. Amherst is an exclusively undergraduate four-year institution and enrolled 1,744 students in the fall of 2009...
.
Leithauser is the uncle and godfather of Hamilton Leithauser, lead singer of The Walkmen
The Walkmen
The Walkmen are an American indie rock band, with members based in New York City and Philadelphia. The band formed in 2000 with three members from Jonathan Fire*Eater—Paul Maroon , Walter Martin , and Matt Barrick —and two from The Recoys, Peter Bauer and Hamilton Leithauser . All but Bauer...
.
Awards and grants
- Ingram Merrill Foundation Grant
- MacArthur Fellowship
- 1982 Guggenheim FellowshipGuggenheim FellowshipGuggenheim Fellowships are American grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." Each year, the foundation makes...
- Medal of the Order of the FalconOrder of the FalconThe Order of the Falcon or Hin íslenska fálkaorða is a national Order of Iceland, established on July 3, 1921 by King Christian X of Denmark and Iceland.-History and appointments:...
(awarded by the President of IcelandIcelandIceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...
)
Poetry collections
- Hundreds of Fireflies Knopf, 1982, ISBN 9780394748962
- Cats of the Temple, Knopf, 1986, ISBN 9780394741529
- The Mail from Anywhere, Knopf, 1990, ISBN 9780394585864
- The Odd Last Thing She Did, Alfred A. Knopf, 1998, ISBN 9780375401411
Novels
- Equal Distance, Knopf, 1985; New American Library, 1986, ISBN 9780452258181
- Hence, Knopf, 1989
- Seaward, Knopf, 1993
- The Friends of Freeland, A.A. Knopf, 1997, ISBN 9780679450832
- Darlington's Fall: A Novel in Verse, Alfred A. Knopf, 2002, ISBN 9780375411489
- The Art Student's War Random House Digital, Inc., 2009, ISBN 9780307271112
External links
- Married Poets Craft Love Poems by the Clock
- Brad Leithauser in The New York Times
- "A Good List", The New Criterion, October 2006
- Brad Leithauser in The New Criterion
- Brad Leithauser in The Atlantic
- Brad Leithauser in The New Republic
- Brad Leithauser in The New York Review of Books
- Brad Leithauser web index at Knopf
- Leithauser in The New Yorker
- Leithauser Review of Marianne Moore collection