Landscape With Chainsaw

by James Lasdun

"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.

Genres: Poetry

82 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

James Lasdun was born in London and now lives in upstate New York. He has published two novels as well as several collections of short stories and poetry. He has been long-listed for the Man Booker Prize and short-listed for the Los Angeles Times, T. S. Eliot, and Forward prizes in poetry; and he was the winner of the inaugural U.K./BBC Short Story Prize. His nonfiction has been published in Harper’s Magazine, Granta, and the London Review of Books.

Reviews

[Arlene · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fine book of poetry that, to me, recalls Philip Larkin: much of the poetry is unobtrusively formal, the sensibiility is often mordant. In a way its narrative is the anti-Larkin: the speaker (taking all the poems together as a narrative) is from a family of British Jews who converted to Anglicanism, and his consciousness of being an outsider among the English, and everywhere, runs throughout. He emigrates to the United States, marries, and gradually comes to feel less exiled. He even appreciates strip malls and chain saws. (This is my construction of an overall narrative from the individual poems, which are lyrical and beautiful, full of freshness.) I read this with a group--the others didn't much like it. I think it's beautiful, complex, amusing. One poem is told from the point of view of a snake in the ceiling of a laundry room watching a woman--The Woman, Eve. A random few lines:

When the drunk at the bar of the Royal Oak

glared into my face,

gripping his pint like a hand grenade

from which he'd just taken the pin,

and told me what he told me,

the pang I felt

was like the split that goes on riving

all the way down the trunk

from one sound blow to the wedge,

as though it had been there forever, waiting.

Hops

Doggone, I wanted to keep on quoting more...to do it more justice. So, buy it and read it.

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am happy to report that this book was my first time reading poetry in a long time. The wordplay and language was beautiful yet not overwhelming. The stories about the chainsaw and woodstock were full of emotion yet clear and to the point. My only problem with this book is the fact that I fall to get many of the references but I’m choosing to blame the author rather than my own literary failings. Overall, a good read I’ll revisit it again when I read more books.

[Salty Swift · Rating 3 out of 5]

Careful with chainsaws... don't know if I could ever use one safely?

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

PPE 3/26/08

[Doc]

this was a pleasure to read

[Stephen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stellar poetry. Very striking. Great phrasing.