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 ...
in
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 ClockBrad Leithauser in The New York TimesBrad 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 AtlanticBrad Leithauser in The New RepublicBrad Leithauser in The New York Review of BooksBrad 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