Hailey Leithauser has won the Poetry Foundation’s 2012 Emily Dickinson First Book Award. The 57-year-old poet has been writing off and on since the late 1970s. Since 2000, her work has been published in The Antioch Review, The Gettysburg Review, Pleiades, Best American Poetry, and Poetry.
The award, which is given only occasionally, was designed to give recognition to an American poet over the age of forty who has yet to publish a collection of poetry. Leithauser’s first book-length poetry manuscript, Swoop, comes out in October 2013 from Graywolf Press. As the award recipient, Leithauser wins $10,000 and will also be honored at the Pegasus Awards ceremony at the Poetry Foundation on Monday, June 11.
Jeff Shotts, poetry editor at Graywolf, describes Leithauser as “a risk-taker.” He says: “She is innovative—with spirited titles and musical outbursts—but also nods to poetic tradition with rhyming sonnets and other lyric techniques. I take delight in so many of these lines and stanzas. I am engaged, throughout, and admire her wide-ranging talent.”