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 (thought, thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral t ...

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 wage, living writing novels and other fiction, while other ...

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 (message), letter, a term paper, paper, an article (publishing), article, a pamphlet, and a s ...

ist, and teacher. After serving as the Emily Dickinson Lecturer in the Humanities at

Mount Holyoke College Mount Holyoke College is a Private college, private Women's colleges in the United States, women's Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in South Hadley, Massachusetts, United States. It is the oldest member of the h ...

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 Writing Seminars.

Biography

Leithauser was born in 1953 in

Detroit Detroit ( , ) is the List of municipalities in Michigan, most populous city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is situated on the bank of the Detroit River across from Windsor, Ontario. It had a population of 639,111 at the 2020 United State ...

Michigan Michigan ( ) is a peninsular U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, Upper Midwestern United States. It shares water and land boundaries with Minnesota to the northwest, Wisconsin to the west, ...

. He is an alumnus of the Cranbrook School in

Bloomfield Hills, Michigan Bloomfield Hills is a city in Oakland County, Michigan, Oakland County in the U.S. state of Michigan. A northern Metro Detroit, suburb of Detroit on the Woodward Corridor, Bloomfield Hills is located roughly northwest of downtown Detroit, and is ...

and a graduate of

Harvard College Harvard College is the undergraduate education, undergraduate college of Harvard University, a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Part of the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Scienc ...

and

Harvard Law School Harvard Law School (HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, Harvard Law School is the oldest law school in continuous operation in the United ...

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

Kyoto Kyoto ( or ; Japanese language, Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in the Kansai region of Japan's largest and most populous island of Honshu. , the city had a population of 1.46 million, making it t ...

Comparative Law Center in Japan. Leithauser has lived in Japan, Italy, England, Iceland, and France. He was married to the poet Mary Jo Salter 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 The Johns Hopkins University (often abbreviated as Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Founded in 1876 based on the European research institution model, J ...

Baltimore, Maryland Baltimore is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland. With a population of 585,708 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census and estimated at 568,271 in 2024, it is the List of United States ...

. Leithauser's work has appeared in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'', ''

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 ...

'', ''

Time Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...

'', ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...

'', 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 college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1821 as an attempt to relocate Williams College by its then-president Zepha ...

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

Awards and grants

* Ingram Merrill Foundation Grant * MacArthur Fellowship * 1982

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are Grant (money), grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simon Guggenheim, Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon indiv ...

* 1984 Younger Poets Award from Academy of American Poets * Medal of the Order of the Falcon (awarded by the President of

Iceland Iceland is a Nordic countries, Nordic island country between the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between North America and Europe. It is culturally and politically linked with Europe and is the regi ...

)

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