After reading just two or three poems from Swoop, Hailey Leithauser's debut poetry collection, it's easy to see why this gathering of sleek, precise verse won the Poetry Foundation's Emily Dickinson First Book Award. Quite simply, poetry lovers will find reading any of her 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.
Leithauser has the rare ability to assemble phrases in such a way that the reader not only enjoys her facility with language but can instantly recognize the word depicted in her words, as her imagery clicks into perfect place. One example is the four-part "Extreme Season," in which spring, characterized in "Delirium," offers "emerald and pine and lime unsheathed to make/ a miser weep," while in the "Fever" of summer, would-be sleepers writhe
"on the bunched up,
corkscrewed sheets of cots
and slumped brass beds."
Leithauser's agility of expression and biting sense of humor shine through, whether in a vignette of a discarded lover merrily torturing a voodoo doll of her ex or the imagined thoughts of a scythe longing to give its wielder a sharp caress. Though she spares little time for the softer side of romance, she still proves her skill in conveying a range of emotions with a comparison of loneliness's ability to "nickel-and-dime you to death" versus the way envy "will empty your wallet."
More than once, Leithauser offers interludes on words "From the Grandiloquent Dictionary," lengthy or rarely used terms she plays upon so nimbly that readers may not come away with a definition of the word, but they will nonetheless have its essence. For example, in "Katzenjammer," whose title is a German word for a cat's wailing that may also mean any discordant sound or hangover, she encourages readers:
"Think of the yowl of three senile felines.
Think of a buzzsaw's black, sauerkraut whine.
Imagine ten screeched, unleashed violins.
Imagine the dawn that follows the gin."
Unfettered by allegiance to a single poetic form, Leithauser also shows her willingness to embrace both traditional rhymed forms and more playful experimentation with long, narrow slivers of verse that trickle down the page in a stream of upbeat rhythm. Here's hoping this confident and deft collection will be the first of many from a powerful wordsmith. --Jaclyn Fulwood
Shelf Talker: This shrewd debut collection showcases Hailey Leithauser's precise and clever verse.