The Oldest Word for Dawn

New and Selected Poems

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From one of our most universally admired poets: a generous selection from his five acclaimed books of poetry, and an outstanding group of new poems.

From the outset, Brad Leithauser has displayed a venturesome taste for quirky patterns, innovative designs sprung loose from traditional forms. In The Oldest Word for Dawn, we encounter a sonnet in one-syllable lines (“Post-Coitum Tristesse”), a clanging rhyme-mad tribute to the music of Tin Pan Alley (“A Good List”), intricate buried rhyme schemes (“In Minako Wada’s House”), autobiography spun through parodies of Frost and Keats and Omar Khayyám (“Two Summer Jobs”).

In a new poem, “Earlier,” the poet investigates a kind of paradox: What is the oldest word for dawn in any language? The pursuit ultimately…

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February 19, 2013

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BRAD LEITHAUSER is the author, most recently, of Rhyme’s Rooms and the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including a MacArthur Fellowship. This is his nineteenth book. He is a professor in the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University and divides his time between Baltimore, MD, and Amherst, MA.