BLAZE

The all but all-                   

Consuming fire

Of ‘31

That brought half   

The village down,

Ripping from 

Its hillside perch

The lean white steeple

Of the state’s

Third-oldest church,            

Has—2017—                                    

Dwindled to a few unsteady         

Embers in the mind

Of a bright schoolboy,

Austin Sills,

Now ninety-four,      

Who, pressed for details,                

Sometimes supplies

Them handily,   

With urgent certainty—

Sometimes, querulously,              

Wonders when supper will be        

Served or whether he

Has eaten it already.  

FOUR QUATRAINS

                                    i. An Ogden Observations

Guys will be boys; you can’t expect even grown men’ll seize

     On those elaborate social niceties

So nicely drawn they’re all but subliminal.

          But the women’ll.  

                                    ii. What to Believe: A Biblical Exegesis

             The garden of Eden?

                 Maybe a fable.

            Yet you can be certain

                 Cain slew Abel.  

                                              iii.   The Practical Man

                                    … not only slays the dragon

                                       But cuts it up, salts it down,

                                    And carts the meat to town

                                       To sell from the back of his wagon.

                                    iv. Lunar Observation

                                    Were the stars dropped from their vast vault

                                         Upon your tongue, you’d feel the bite.

                                    There’s nothing sweet about the night.

                                         Never confuse sugar and salt. 

About the poet: Brad Leithauser recently published The Promise of Elsewhere with Knopf (spring, 2019), which will also be publishing his Rhyme's Rooms: The Architecture of Poetry (2021). Leithauser’s other books include six collections of poetry, six novels, and various volumes that fall out of the usual categories, such as the novel-in-verse Darlington’s Fall, as well as two volumes of light verse with illustrations by his brother Mark Leithauser, Lettered Creatures and Toad to a Nightingale (Godine).

A MacArthur Fellow from 1983 to 1988, he was inducted into the Order of the Falcon by the President of Iceland in 2005 for his service in promoting Icelandic literature. 

Leithauser, a former drama critic for Time, has a special interest in American popular music and musical theater, and has written on these subjects and others for The New York Review of Books. He is also the author of Penchants and Places (essays), and the editor both of No Other Book, a selection of Randall Jarrell’s prose, and of The Norton Book of Ghost Stories. 

Leithauser joined the Writing Seminars faculty in 2008, having taught at Amherst College, the School of the Arts at Columbia University, and, for 21 years, Mount Holyoke College. His teaching interests include what he calls “modern alternatives to realism”—including such modes as science fiction and the supernatural.

About the artist: We have been very excited for the chance to collaborate with internationally renowned and award-winning Film, Animation Director & Creator Mustashrik Mahbub. With his unique attention to detail and intense directorial vision he translated powerful narratives for international clients such as Louis Vuitton, Montblanc, Chloe, Salvatore Ferragamo and UBS. Outside of classic media formats, a variety of live-multi screen visual performances for musician Ed Sheeran were created for his live tours (One and What Do I Know); which have been presented at various concerts since 2013 up to 2018 thus far. A special addition to these live visuals, Castle On The Hill, was debuted with high-industry praise at The BRIT Awards 2017 and the iHeartRadio Awards in Los Angeles. Over these years, he has been featured in Rolling Stone, Campaign, Ad Week, STASH, Shots Magazine, Art Review, D&AD and Bloomberg News, while his animations have been nominated and winning at various film festivals (Annecy, KLIK, Kinsale, Encounters, among others).