Brad Leithauser

Emily Dickinson Senior Lecturer in the Humanities

Specialization: Creative writing

Distinguished poet, essayist, journalist, and novelist Brad Leithauser shares the Emily Dickinson Senior Lectureship in the Humanities with his wife, celebrated poet Mary Jo Salter. His most recent novel, Darlington's Fall: A Novel in Verse, earned praise from W. S. Merwin and John Updike, who called it "an amazing merger of art and science, verse and narrative. [...] Not since Nabokov has the miracle of consciousness been celebrated with such erudite passion, such lofty wit." New York Times Book Review included Darlington's Fall in its list of notable books for 2002.

His most recent book of poetry was Lettered Creatures, about which the New York Times said, "Leithauser has made a book ideally suited to his talents." The book is actually the work of two Leithausers, Brad and his brother Mark. Brad supplied the book's 28 light-verse animal portraits and Mark its 28 pencil drawings.

In addition to several novels and collections of poems, Leithauser has written a collection of essays, Penchants and Places, and served as editor of The Norton Book of Ghost Stories. He has received many awards for his writing, among them MacArthur and Guggenheim fellowships.

Leithauser teaches Introduction to Literature; Short Story Writing; and Comic Verse, Light Verse, which introduces students to a broad range of eras and styles—from Shakespeare and Pope to Auden, Frost, and Bishop; and from Campion and Dowland to Porter, Gershwin, and Sondheim.

News Links:

"Leithauser's Curves and Angles Reviewed," N.Y. Times, March 14, 2007

"MHC Duo Write Poetry on NewsHour," PBS, February 14, 2007

"Leithauser Reviews New Aeneid Translation," N.Y. Times Sunday Book Review, December 18, 2006

"Leithauser to Read from his book, Curves and Angles,"  November 14, 2006

"Leithauser Reviews W.D. Snodgrass Poems," N.Y. Times and the International Herald Tribune, September 5, 2006

"Leithauser Reviews New Work by Seamus Heaney," N.Y. Times Book Review, July 17, 2006

"MHC's Leithauser Reviews Collected Poems of C.P. Cavafy,"  N.Y. Times Book Review, March 26, 2006

"Brad Leithauser Awarded High Honor By President Of Iceland," Press Release, March 7, 2005

"Leithauser Brothers to Present Letter Creatures," November 22, 2004

"Leithauser Calls Icelandic Epic "Darkly Magnificient", New York Times, February 23, 2004

"Five MHC Professors Garner Teaching and Scholarship Awards," College Street Journal, April 30, 2004

"Leithauser's Darlington's Fall: 'Amazing Merger of Art and Science,', Vista, fall 2002

"Front-Page News: New York, New York," College Street Journal, January 17, 2003

"Leithauser and Zarin to Read from New Works March 13," College Street Journal, March 8, 2002

"Poetry in Motion: Student Writers Develop Their Craft Under the Tutelage of Great American Poets," Vista, fall 1999