The Old Current: Poems

Synopsis

MacArthur Fellowship–winning poet Brad Leithauser returns with his first new collection in more than a decade, a collection that recalls the delicacy and intimacy of his early, award-winning volumes, and embraces the wisdom of age.As snappy as a dinner jacket&’s red silk lining, as appealing as a piano interlude in jazz, Brad Leithauser&’s robust felicity is a balm in grim times. It&’s also the perfect vehicle for nostalgia, regret, and surprise, forces that animate his first collection in more than a decade. By turns laugh-out-loud funny and deeply thoughtful, this collection balances wisdom and practicality, as with deft care Leithauser easily, often unexpectedly, juggles off-rhymes and old forms and new. The book unfolds like a five-act play, moving from chattier poems to dramatic denouements. In the collection&’s two &“Darker&” sections, we meet folks learning to say goodbye, from a three-year-old&’s cry &“I love you so loud&” (&“A Young Farewell&”) to a reckoning with words formed &“Forty-Five Years On.&” Time presses in continually. In &“Abroad&” and &“At Home,&” the author shows us himself, in younger form: sixty-six, then twenty-seven, catapulted back in memory to Tokyo by a single bite of food (&“The Old Current&”). Then, eight, and awed to remember the beauty of a lone jet overhead. With Updikean wordplay he recalls: &“Porch steps, sunset; a warm, gathering gloom. / Behind me, five lives: two parents plus the three / Brothers with whom I share my room&” (&“A Single Flight&”). As Leithauser takes the measure of a world expanding behind him, he manages to become weightless, freer, wild again. He also refuses to give up second chances. In the &“Lighter&” interlude, we chance upon &“Icarus and His Kid Brother.&” We&’re treated to dactyls and lively quatrains, a sloppy kiss that&’s not quite bliss, musings on sobriety, and what comes to pass when &“life turns lickerish and liquory&” (&“Double Dactyls,&” &“Six Quatrains,&” &“The Muses,&” and &“Kisses After Novocaine&”). The energies yoked within Leithauser&’s formalism overflow formality. Often elegiac and yet packed with humor, contemplative, consoling, and informed by the soul of a storyteller, Brad Leithauser&’s latest book of poetry is a warming, enrapturing read that returns us to the ebbs and flows of life&’s shores. &“I&’m sixty-six,&” the author writes, &“and could anything / Reliably be more heartening / Than stray hints that life&’s brightest events. / Are, however far-flung, strung / Along a long old current?&”

Copyright:

2025

Book Details

Book Quality:

Publisher Quality

Book Size:

96 Pages

ISBN-13:

9780593802816

Related ISBNs:

9780593802809, 9798217074013, 9798217074020

Publisher:

Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

Date of Addition:

03/04/25

Copyrighted By:

Brad Leithauser

Adult content:

No

Language:

English

Has Image Descriptions:

No

Categories:

Poetry, Literature and Fiction

Submitted By:

Bookshare Staff

Usage Restrictions:

This is a copyrighted book.