LITANY FOR THE CITY by Ryan Teitman

Ryan Teitman
Litany for the City 

BOA Editions 
http://www.boaeditions.org/ 

By the numbers
ISBN 9781934414804 
Publication: 2012 
Total pages: 80 
Number of poems: 21

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(This review was first posted in Poetry Matters.)

I first met Ryan Teitman in 2009 when he was a student attending Indiana University’s MFA program. I'm an admirer of his poetry and when I saw that he had published his first book (a prize-winner no less),  I jumped at the chance to share it with you.  Fortunately, he also agreed to an interview, so click here to read the interview and learn more about this talented poet. He’s definitely one to watch. 

—Nancy Chen Long

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Ryan Teitman’s first book of poetry Litany for the City was selected by Jane Hirshfield as the 2012 winner of the A. Pouling, Jr. Poetry Prize, published by BOA Editions. Litany for the City is a meditation on place, the importance of place, the embodiment of place, the conflation of place and body. Teitman provides structure for the reader through the theme of city / place / location—from consideration of a city such as Philedelphia, to a place like that of a dry wheat field (“Ephesians”), to the tender location on the body, a “patch of jawbone hidden by the earlobe” (“Vespers”). In addition,