Landscape with Chainsaw
Poems
"Brilliant ....certainly among the most gifted, vivid, and deft poets now writing in English."—Anthony Hecht, author of The Darkness and the Light
An exuberant and bold series of poems drawing on the poet's life in the Catskill Mountains. Questions of exile and belonging figure prominently, as does the struggle to find a viable relationship with the natural world. In the chainsaw—the book's central image—all manner of human traits are reflected with an intense, often comical brilliance.
"[A] nervy and unnerving book, a canny and unsettling book-urgent, tender, large-souled. No serious reader should miss it."—J. D. McClatchy, editor of The Vintage Book of Contemporary World Poetry
"An extraordinary deconstruction and reconstruction of landscapes, both natural and interior."—The New Yorker
"Deeply literary, but cool as well...these verses will ensure there are laurels on Lasdun's brow for many years to come."—The Guardian
"Intellectual seriousness...sensuous love of words....[Lasdun] is among the strongest young poets in America."—The New Criterion
"One of the finest books of last year."—The Scotsman
"Poems that are fast and deep and thick-textured."—Times Literary Supplement's International Books of the Year
"Sharp, slicing imagery gives Lasdun's poetry its deep notch of truth."—New York Times Book Review
"The laconic humour and uncluttered language give Lasdun's poems a veneer of simplicity."—The Times [London]
"The prose drowned in these memorable verses [is] all the richer for the immersion. Fortified Lasdun, fortunate us!"—Richard Howard
"This is a terrific book."—The New Statesman
James Lasdun is a poet and a fiction writer. He lives in Shady, New York.
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