Swoop: Poems

by Hailey Leithauser

Overview

Winner of the Emily Dickinson First Book Award from the Poetry Foundation

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 from To 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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781555976576
Publisher:	Graywolf Press
Publication date:	10/01/2013
Pages:	80
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.80(h) x 0.30(d)

About the Author

Hailey Leithauser's poems have appeared in Best American Poetry, The Gettysburg Review, and Poetry, and she has received numerous awards, including the Discovery/The Nation Prize. She lives in the Maryland suburbs near Washington, DC.

Table of Contents

Scythe 3

Was You Ever Bit by a Dead Bee? 5

Schadenfreude 6

Sex Alfresco 8

Extreme Season 9

Jiminy 13

Shoot-Out at the So-So Corral 14

Charm against Insomnia 16

Rapture 17

Guillotine 18

Sex Fiasco 20

From the Grandiloquent Dictionary 21

Inspiration 22

O, She Says 23

Paean: Moon 24

We Few Born beneath a Bitter Star 25

Romance 26

Sex Circumspect 28

In Praise of Flattery 29

I Love Me, Vol. I 30

I Recant, Vol. II 31

Bad Sheep 32

Crowbar 34

Sex Obstreperous 36

Apologia 37

From the Grandiloquent Dictionary 38

Veritas Interruptus 39

Memoirs 40

O Sorrow, O Bother 42

Loneliness 43

Mono No Aware 44

Mockingbird 46

Sex Odalisque 48

Sex Rubenesque 49

From the Grandiloquent Dictionary 50

Whither the Lamplight, 51

The Old Woman Gets Drunk with the Moon 52

Boys of L.A. 53

The Voluminous Diva 54

Having Discovered a Windfall by the Side of the Road, the Cautious Miser Is Visited by the Angel of Profligacy 55

The Roshi in the Mirror 56

Pip, Mid-Sea 58

Rescue 59

Brass Knuckles 60

From the Grandiloquent Dictionary 62

Zen Heaven 63

Editorial Reviews

Always clever, fun and alert to the history of its flexible forms, this debut at its best is a lot more than fun: it’s a frantic argument in favor of obvious beauty, of ornament, and of elaborate jokes, as barriers against something like despair. The Maryland-based Leithauser offers couplets, quatrains, refrains, puns aplenty, even triolets, along with various rich sorts of word play, enjoying the “scald// of words as they fall, their vein-purr, myrrh-stain.” Her poems also brim with palindromes (“Niagara, o roar again!”) and reversible terms (from the title, “dooms” upside-down). Spinning morals from puns, conclusions from quick conceits, she can come close—perhaps too close—to Kay Ryan, especially when she uses Ryan’s short lines. Elsewhere, though, the undertone of disappointed romance and the quest for complex patterns, even when life’s disappointments are simple indeed, make Leithauser (who works for the Department of Energy in D.C.) a poet of her own, whether writing of hermits (“The arrogant inmate/ alone in his flesh”) or spinning out a set of 11-line poems whose titles start with “Sex” (“Sex Circumspect,” “Sex Rubenesque”). “Inspiration,” she writes, is a “flim flam grand slam,” but the impulse to poetry survives in less primal fashion: “O, she says, because she loves to say O.” Unsympathetic perusers may find the work thin, but more careful readers—especially those who also like much older verse—ought to find it attractive, both for its puzzles and for the lives it contains. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

“Poets do not come much lighter than Hailey Leithauser, whose first book is nearly Baroque . . . in its playfulness, its confections of wordplay. . . . Delightful.” —Boston Review

“Always clever, fun and alert to the history of its flexible forms, this debut at its best is a lot more than fun: it's a frantic argument in favor of obvious beauty, of ornament, and of elaborate jokes, as barriers against something like despair.” —Publishers Weekly

“Quite simply, poetry lovers will find reading any of [Leithauser's] poems without smiling an impossible feat. Depending on the subject of the poem in question, the smile may be joyful, subtle or even a bit wicked--regardless, the talent and craft exhibited here is cause for sheer glee. . . . Here's hoping this confident and deft collection will be the first of many from a powerful wordsmith.” —Shelf Awareness

“Every poem feels necessary, because there's nothing haphazard about Swoop. Each one of Leithauser's formal poems is so meticulously crafted that the book as a whole should feel like a stiffly brocaded coat--but instead, it's airy and light. . . . Leithauser has style to spare, but also substance.” —Los Angeles Review of Books

“There is evident lineage in Swoop to Marianne Moore. . . . Leithauser's poems should be read aloud--the insistent rhymind and repetition demand it. . . . Wide in scope and playfully serious in tone, [Swoop is] excessive in the best way possible.” —NewPages

“Leithauser is frolic and bubbles, whimsy and chance. She owns rhyme and meter and and strings them on a bouncing string. And she is smart. Every line is a surprise. How many poets do we know like that?” —Washington Independent Review of Books

“ [Swoop] understands the physical nature of words and sounds. [Leithauser's] poems bounce along several registers, surprising us with their diction and resulting music. . . . We are seduced by the sound of the poems, and their physicality inhabits us, wins us over. . . . Swoop stands out as one of the most interesting books of the past year because it breathes life.” —32 Poems

“Swoop is a book of dazzling invention. Its poems are ingeniously playful, formally adventurous, and filled with limitless pleasures for the ear, the intellect, and the imagination. Pound may have asked poets to' purify the language of the tribe,' but Leithauser goes further. She makes English fresher and chocks it full with beguiling new facets.” —Stephen Young, The Poetry Foundation

“Possessed of an unnatural ability with the language, preternatural grace in form, and an extraordinary capacity to be dead serious with killer humor, [Leithauser] is a glittering poet who found her voice in maturity.” —Women's Voices For Change

“Marianne Moore wrote that an essential poetry component is gusto. Hailey Leithauser's poems make the brain buzz with infectious rhyme and lusty rhythms. It's hard to sit still while reading them, so truly are they bursting with gusto. This poet catches the glorious din of the world, the gorgeous, full-bore orchestra of thought melodies, vowel-and-consonant romps, trills of perception, diction collisions. It's original, invigorating, inebriating work. Part of the delight in reading Leithauser is that meaning is never a casualty of the music, but intensified by it. What a pleasure to read these poems and 'drown in word nectar.'” —Amy Gerstler, author of Dearest Creature

From the Publisher