Mandy Kahn

Mandy Kahn is the author of the poetry collection Math, Heaven, Time. Former Poet Laureate Ted Kooser featured Kahn’s poem “At the Dorm” in his newspaper column American Life in Poetry. She frequently collaborates with composers to create new works that combine poetry and classical music and was a librettist for Yuval Sharon’s acclaimed opera Hopscotch. Kahn is coauthor, with Aaron Rose, of the nonfiction bookCollage Culture, which was also released as a record with a score by No Age. She lives in Los Angeles.

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