Brian Laidlaw

The Stuntman: Poems Brian Laidlaw

Marc Notes: THE EARTH BROKE OPEN CAUSE WE BROKE IT OPEN, blares the first line of this enrapturing debut collection mapping the myth of Narcissus and Echo and the Iron Range roots of Bob Dylan onto a world growing increasingly self-obsessed. Against the backdrop of the mining town of Hibbing, Minnesota, Brian Laidlaw examines the ways narcissism has flooded culture. Much like a hawk has a horizontal sweet spot on its retina / for spotting prey on the prairie, the speaker of these poems has a narcissus / shaped sweet spot / all the better to spot himself. The volume comes combined with a brand new LP from Laidlaw produced by Brett Bullion, co-arranged by Hibbing native Danny Vitali, and featuring members of The Pines and Halloween, Alaska. Expanding on the themes addressed in Narcissus the Stuntman, the album provides listeners an innovative multimedia experience--; Provided by publisher. Review Quotes: "Laidlaw knows, as Bruce Chatwin wrote, that an unsung land is a dead land. "The Stuntman" resurrects sonic fragments of folk knowhow by threading them back through the thrashing heart of American lyric. He wrangles Dylan's idiot wind into the hothouse breath of each line's conspiracy: 'I am part of the collective / idiocy, the anthill a commons and a summons.' In this gorgeous debut, he takes what's common and small and stronger than it knows and bids it sing."--Chris Martin, author of "American Music" ""The Stuntman" is a dazzling first book: an all-night thrill revival, a jamboree of ecstatic yawps. Brian Laidlaw is a poet of tremendous lyric gifts and emotive modulation, full of jubilance and unwavering freshness. The associative technique in each of these missives corkscrews and swerves through the broken world with dispatches of yearning, growing these big-hearted and fearless experiments of structure and voice into a gorgeously raw-throated orchestra."--Alex Lemon, author of "The Wish Book" and "Happy: A Memoir"Review Quotes: "Reveals Laidlaw's unique talent in deadpan, witty poems that flash with plangent images and macabre moments."--"Star Tribune" "In this gorgeous debut, Laidlaw takes what's common and small and stronger than it knows and bids it sing."--Chris Martin, author of "American Music" ""The Stuntman" is a dazzling first book: an all-night thrill revival, a jamboree of ecstatic yawps."--Alex Lemon, author of "The Wish Book" and "Happy: A Memoir" "These poems punch a hole right through the wall separating me from magic, leaping back and forth as if the wall were a fire--between the quotidian and the ecstatic, between a commons and a summons, breaking down antagonymic barriers so the sun shines through." --Eleni Sikelianos, author of "The California Poem"Publisher Marketing: "THE EARTH BROKE OPEN CAUSE WE BROKE IT OPEN," blares the first line of this enrapturing debut collection mapping the myth of Narcissus and Echo and the Iron Range roots of Bob Dylan onto a world growing increasingly self-obsessed. Against the backdrop of the mining town of Hibbing, Minnesota, Brian Laidlaw examines the ways narcissism has flooded culture. Much like a "hawk has a horizontal sweet spot on its retina / for spotting prey on the prairie," the speaker of these poems "has a narcissus / shaped sweet spot / all the better to spot himself." The volume comes combined with a brand new LP from Laidlaw produced by Brett Bullion, co-arranged by Hibbing native Danny Vitali, and featuring members of The Pines and Halloween, Alaska. Expanding on the themes addressed in "Narcissus the Stuntman," the album provides listeners an innovative multimedia experience.