Hailey Leithauser

O ludicrous swoon, O blind hind-sight,
O torching of bridges and blood boiled white,
O sparrow, and arrow, and hell below,
O, she says, because she loves to say O.
from O, She Says

Swoop is a sonically audacious first book, a ringing up and down the musical scales. Hailey Leithauser's resplendent array of forms from traditional verse to more fragmented, onrushing experiments takes the reader to the heights of lyricism. In these poems, sharp objects speak for themselves, sex is taken up alfresco (among other things), an enigmatic question is posed fromTo Have and Have Not, and the song of a mockingbird drives us out of bed. A paean to excess,Swoop is a virtuosic and exhilarating debut.

Swoop

Rachel Hadas

Jacqueline Osherow

Malachi Black

Able Muse, Winter 2017 (No. 24 - print edition): a review of poetry, prose & art This is the seminannual Able Muse Review (Print Edition) - Winter 2017 issue, Number 24. This issue continues the tradition of masterfully crafted poetry, fiction, essays, art & photography, and book reviews that have become synonymous with the Able Muse-online and in print. After more than a decade of online publishing excellence, Able Muse print edition maintains the superlative standard of the work presented all these years in the online edition, and, the Able Muse Anthology (Able Muse Press, 2010). Includes the winning story and poems from the 2017 Able Muse contest winners and finalists. ". . . [ ABLE MUSE ] fills an important gap in understanding what is really happening in early twenty-first century American poetry." - Dana Gioia.

a review of poetry, prose & art

Able Muse, Winter 2017 (No. 24 - print edition)

Saint Worm, Hailey Leithauser&rsquo;s second poetry collection, collects—sometimes warmly, sometime wickedly—glowworm, bookworm, earthworm, and other earthly and unearthly creatures, including human beings. Leithauser&rsquo;s sparklingly inimitable style mates the serious with the playful, yielding a treasury of quirkiness, inventive turns of phrase, wordplay, and expansive diction, making&nbsp;Saint Worm&nbsp;a collection unlike any other. PRAISE FOR SAINT WORM Surprise is what I treasure most in my reaction to art, and Hailey Leithauser&rsquo;s Saint Worm surprises. Alternately funny and sad, creepy and comfy, disturbing and insightful, the book demands attention. Quirky as Stevie Smith and smart as Marianne Moore, what you hold in your hands is a masterpiece. &emsp;&emsp;—Spencer Reece PRAISE FOR HAILEY LEITHAUSER &ldquo;Meticulously crafted . . . Leithauser has style to spare, but also substance, and yes, playful, in the best sense of the word, pleasurable and pleasure-seeking . . . This is the trick Leithauser does so well, marrying delightful, silvery rhyme to darker content.&rdquo;—Los Angles Review of Books &ldquo;The talent and craft exhibited here is cause for sheer glee . . . Leithauser&rsquo;s agility of expression and biting sense of humor shine through . . . Here&rsquo;s hoping this confident and deft collection will be the first of many from a powerful wordsmith.&rdquo;—Shelf Awareness &ldquo;. . . In its playfulness, its confections of wordplay . . . Delightful.&rdquo;—Boston Review &ldquo;A frantic argument in favor of obvious beauty, of ornament, and of elaborate jokes, as barriers against something like despair.&rdquo;—Publishers Weekly &ldquo;Possessed of an unnatural ability with the language, preternatural grace in form, and an extraordinary capacity to be dead serious with killer humor.&rdquo;—Women&rsquo;s Voice for Change &ldquo;Hailey Leithauser&rsquo;s intoxicating first collection, understands the physical nature of words and sounds. Her poems bounce along several registers, surprising us with their diction and resulting music . . . Swoop stands out as one of the most interesting books of this past year.&rdquo;—32 Poems ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Hailey Leithauser&rsquo;s debut collection, Swoop, won the Poetry Foundation&rsquo;s Emily Dickinson First Book Award and the Towson Prize for Literature. Her poems appear in Agni, the Gettysburg Review, Poetry, the Yale Review, and numerous other periodicals, and have been selected three times for The Best American Poetry anthology. She is a recipient of the Discovery/the Nation Prize, the River Styx International Poetry Award, the Elizabeth Matchett Stover Award, and two Individual Artist Grants from the Maryland State Arts Council. She lives quite lazily at the edge of a precipitous wooded ravine a few miles north of Washington, DC, and teaches at the West Chester Poetry Conference.

Hailey Leithauser

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