Mozart's Pigtail

In Mozart's Pigtail, Townley offers an evocative series of poem-portraits of musicians, writers, and intimate friends. Townley honors these meaningful connections in his life, and readers experience how these subjects can ignite a poet's creative power.

"There is a delicacy that finds meaning in the small things that happen to great beings, in the great things that rise within our familiar friendships--or are they always somehow strange, as his poems discern. Townley's sure grasp of the telling detail, the precise word often shocking in its simplicity, gives power to these threnodies and serenades and downright love songs. His is a voice like no one else's I hear these days."

--Robert Kelly

"Gentle but piercing, Roderick Townley's poems ring elegant and subtle changes on the themes of art and love: elegy and eros overlap in longing. A poet on whom, apparently, nothing is lost, Townley generously repays the debts that, as student and artist and son, he has incurred. If only every poet, musician, and teacher had a Townley to celebrate them. If only every mother, wife, or infant on the changing table inspired work like this."

--Rachel Hadas