Brad E. Leithauser (born February 27, 1953) is an American

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or w ...

novelist A novelist is an author or writer of novels, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction. Some novelists are professional novelists, thus make a living writing novels and other fiction, while others aspire ...

essay An essay is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a letter, a paper, an article, a pamphlet, and a short story. Essays have been sub-classified as formal a ...

ist, and teacher. After serving as the

Emily Dickinson Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (December 10, 1830 – May 15, 1886) was an American poet. Little-known during her life, she has since been regarded as one of the most important figures in American poetry. Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massac ...

Lecturer in the Humanities at

Mount Holyoke College Mount Holyoke College is a private liberal arts women's college in South Hadley, Massachusetts. It is the oldest member of the historic Seven Sisters colleges, a group of elite historically women's colleges in the Northeastern United States. ...

and visiting professor at the

MFA Program for Poets & Writers MFA may refer to: Organizations * Marine and Fisheries Agency, a former UK government executive agency * Ministry of Foreign Affairs (including a list of ministries with the name) * Movement of the Forces of the Future (french: Mouvement des For ...

at the

University of Massachusetts Amherst The University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst, UMass) is a public research university in Amherst, Massachusetts and the sole public land-grant university in Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Founded in 1863 as an agricultural college, ...

, he is now on faculty at the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars.

Biography

Leithauser was born in 1953 in

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at t ...

Michigan Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and t ...

. He is an alumnus of the Cranbrook School in

Bloomfield Hills, Michigan Bloomfield Hills is a small city (5.04 sq. miles) in Oakland County in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is a northern suburb of Metro Detroit and is approximately northwest of Downtown Detroit. Except a small southern border with the city of Bir ...

and a graduate of

Harvard College Harvard College is the undergraduate college of Harvard University, an Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636, Harvard College is the original school of Harvard University, the oldest institution of higher ...

and

Harvard Law School Harvard Law School (Harvard Law or HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest continuously operating law school in the United States. Each c ...

. He worked for three years as a research fellow at the

Kyoto Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the c ...

Comparative Law Center in Japan. Leithauser has lived in Japan, Italy, England, Iceland, and France. He was married to the poet

Mary Jo Salter Mary Jo Salter (born August 15, 1954) is an American poet, a co-editor of The ''Norton Anthology of Poetry'' and a professor in the Writing Seminars program at Johns Hopkins University. Life Salter was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan and was ...

for many years (they divorced in December 2011) and previously taught at Mount Holyoke College. In January, 2007, Leithauser joined the faculty of

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hemisphere. It consi ...

Baltimore, Maryland Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic, and the 30th most populous city in the United States with a population of 585,708 in 2020. Baltimore wa ...

. Leithauser's work has appeared in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', ''

The New York Review of Books ''The New York Review of Books'' (or ''NYREV'' or ''NYRB'') is a semi-monthly magazine with articles on literature, culture, economics, science and current affairs. Published in New York City, it is inspired by the idea that the discussion of i ...

'', ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and event (philosophy), events that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various me ...

'', ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

'', and '' The New Criterion''. He is on the editorial board of the literary magazine The Common, based at

Amherst College Amherst College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Amherst, Massachusetts. Founded in 1821 as an attempt to relocate Williams College by its then-president Zephaniah Swift Moore, Amherst is the third oldest institution of higher educati ...

. Leithauser is the uncle and godfather of Hamilton Leithauser, lead singer of

The Walkmen The Walkmen is an American indie rock band. Active from 2000 to 2013, they are known as part of the 2000s-era post-punk revival in New York City, particularly for their critically acclaimed single " The Rat." The band is made up of drummer Matt ...

Awards and grants

* Ingram Merrill Foundation Grant *

MacArthur Fellowship The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and commonly but unofficially known as the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation typically to between 20 and 30 indi ...

* 1982

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the art ...

* 1984 Younger Poets Award from

Academy of American Poets The Academy of American Poets is a national, member-supported organization that promotes poets and the art of poetry. The nonprofit organization was incorporated in the state of New York in 1934. It fosters the readership of poetry through outreach ...

* Medal of the

Order of the Falcon The Order of the Falcon ( is, Hin íslenska fálkaorða) is the only order of chivalry in Iceland, founded by King Christian X of Denmark and Iceland on 3 July 1921. The award is awarded for merit for Iceland and humanity and has five degrees. N ...

(awarded by the President of

Iceland Iceland ( is, Ísland; ) is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean and in the Arctic Ocean. Iceland is the most sparsely populated country in Europe. Iceland's capital and largest city is Reykjavík, which (along with its ...

)

Bibliography

Poetry collections

* ''Hundreds of Fireflies'' Knopf, 1982, * ''Cats of the Temple'', Knopf, 1986, * ''The Mail from Anywhere'', Knopf, 1990, * ''The Odd Last Thing She Did'', Alfred A. Knopf, 1998, * * *

Novels

* ''Equal Distance'', Knopf, 1985; New American Library, 1986, * ''Hence'', Knopf, 1989 * ''Seaward'', Knopf, 1993 * ''The Friends of Freeland'', A.A. Knopf, 1997, * * ''Darlington's Fall: A Novel in Verse'', Alfred A. Knopf, 2002, * ''The Art Student's War'', Random House Digital, Inc., 2009, * ''The Promise of Elsewhere'', Alfred A. Knopf, 2019,

Essay collections

* ''Penchants and Places'', A.A. Knopf, 1995

Edited volumes

* ''The Norton Book of Ghost Stories'' (1994)

Anthologies

References

External links

Married Poets Craft Love Poems by the Clock

Brad Leithauser in The New York Times

Brad Leithauser in The New Criterion
*
"A Good List"
''The New Criterion'', October 2006 *
“A science fiction writer of the Fifties”
April 2006
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

{{DEFAULTSORT:Leithauser, Brad 1953 births Living people 20th-century American novelists 21st-century American novelists American male novelists Formalist poets Cranbrook Educational Community alumni Harvard Law School alumni Johns Hopkins University faculty MacArthur Fellows Mount Holyoke College faculty Writers from Detroit Recipients of the Order of the Falcon University of Massachusetts Amherst faculty 20th-century American poets 21st-century American poets American male poets American male essayists 20th-century American essayists 21st-century American essayists 20th-century American male writers 21st-century American male writers Novelists from Maryland Novelists from Massachusetts Novelists from Michigan Harvard College alumni