Hailey Leithauser originally took poetry workshops as an undergraduate at the University of Maryland, but stopped writing for almost 20 years while she pursued a career as a librarian. Standing in front of a van Gogh painting during a visit to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., she was inspired to return to writing, and eventually developed her own form, the small sonnet. Writing dense, compact poems packed with slant and full rhymes has taught Leithauser “to really exploit what you can do in a poem that is only 70 syllables long and that relies on rhyme to really carry it through," she told the Takoma Voice in an interview. Born in Florida, Leithauser lives in Takoma Park, Maryland.
By Hailey Leithauser
The heart of a bear is a cloud-shuttered
mountain. The heart of a mountain’s a kiln.
The white heart of a moth has nineteen white
chambers. The heart of a swan is a swan.
The heart of a wasp is a prick of plush.
The...
By Hailey Leithauser
No other song
or swoop (part
quiver, part swivel and
plash) with
tour de force
stray the course note
liquefactions
(its new,
bawdy air an
aria hangs in) en-
thralls,
trills, loops, soars,
startles, out-warbles,
out-brawns, more
juicily,
lifts up
the dawn, outlaws from
sackcloth,...
By Hailey Leithauser
The heat so peaked tonight
the moon can’t cool
a scum-mucked swimming
pool, or breeze
emerge to lift the frowsy
ruff of owls too hot
to hoot, (the mouse and brown
barn rat astute
enough to know to drop
and dash) while
on the bunched up,
corkscrewed sheets of cots
and slumped...
