Lettered Creatures

Wit is on display on every page of this remarkable alphabet book, each spread of which is devoted to an emblematic creature―an appetitive Anteater, an annoying Fly, an addled Joey, a prickly Porcupine, and twenty-two more. On the left of each spread is an eight-line poem; opposite it is a delicate, complementary pencil drawing.

Brad Leithauser is the author of twelve previous books, including four collections of verse. He lives in Amherst, Massachusetts, with his wife, and is an Emily Dickinson Sernior Lecturer in the Humanities at Mount Holyoke College.


Mark Leithauser has exhibited his artwork throughout the United States, and is currently represented by Hollis Taggart Galleries, New York. He lives in Washington, D.C., where he is a senior curator and the chief of design at the National Gallery of Art.