Glenn Gould's Chair

Poetry. Music. In Mandy Kahn's wonderfully inventive and gloriously lyrical second collection, Béla Bartók treks into remote villages to record folk songs on the world's first phonograph, a dying Gustav Mahler is greeted in heaven by Mozart, Igor Stravinsky receives a letter from a music student who wonders what rules are left to break, and Glenn Gould's chair defends its owner against claims of eccentricity. Kahn—who also works as an opera librettist—explores the challenges and exaltations of the creative life in brilliant, accessible poems that explode with curiosity, incisiveness, and awe—and that build into a lush celebration of music and making.