Winner of the 2007 Akron Poetry Prize<\/b><\/p>\n
Attempting to repair the fissures of everyday life, Brian Brodeur negotiates the psychological distances between desire and disgust, humor and catastrophe, banality and dream. The poems of\u00a0Other Latitudes<\/i>\u00a0begin in the realm of personal experience, and expand into larger territories of cultural narcissism and political blindness. These poems meditate on the tenuous relationship between artist and subject, the curiosities of self-inflicted wounds, and the presence of hope in a landscape that is intrinsically scarred. Brodeur\u2019s debut illustrates the conflict between inner lives and their outward appearances, with an eye turned to the unforgiving natural world.<\/p>\n
In\u00a0<\/i>Other Latitudes,\u00a0Brian Brodeur\u2019s excellent and finely measured first collection, he writes, \u201cLight moves across the counter, almost touching her hand, \/ shattering over an open drawer of knives.\u201d It is an image typical of his ability to yoke the beautiful and the dangerous, and offer them to us without prejudice; in fact, with an equilibrium that bespeaks an inclusive, clear-eyed engagement with the world. Brodeur\u2019s world is one of layers and shadings. His diction is limpid and precise, his ear a fine-tuned instrument for registering nuance. And when he writes about nature, he\u2019s equally adept, employing a vocabulary that does what the best nature writing can do: reinvigorate its subject. The aster, for example, \u201cspreads its spiny \/ roots through chaff, unfurls \/ in cold clusters, tussocks \/ shaking, feeds \/ on ditch water, the sweet \/ decay found there.\u201d I\u2019m pleased to have found such poems, and such a talent.<\/i>
\n\u2014Stephen Dunn<\/b><\/p>\n
Brian Brodeur\u2019s impressive collection,<\/i>\u00a0Other Latitudes,\u00a0begins with a calving, a miracle and its aftermath, and then advances its taxonomy of suffering and violence, pleasure and shame, murder, thievery, and pure erotic joy. These are poems of intelligent emotional complexity\u2014tenderness for the blind and widowed deer hunter, a harrowing sympathy for a cutter\u2019s self-mutilation, a nuanced appreciation of the frisson between artist and figure model, recognitions of the banality of funerals, and the unanticipated guilt in recounting what is endured in cities under siege. The language under Brodeur\u2019s pen is as startling as his poems are wise. This book is more than a debut\u2014it is the work of an already mature and accomplished poet.<\/i>
\n\u2014Carolyn Forch\u00e9<\/b><\/p>\n
Reading Brian Brodeur, I am reminded of St. Augustine\u2019s assertion that \u201cTo blame the fault of a creature is to praise its essential nature.\u201d In the lyric narratives of his debut collection, Other Latitudes, which is urgent, evocative, and, at times, disturbing, Brodeur shows us that the wide expanse of the heart is rife with flaw and error and in showing us its flaw, praises it. Human relationships\u2014the tragic and the comedic\u2014are his subject and he testifies to their essential vitality and complexity with a capacious wit, a quick intelligence, and an enduring generosity.<\/i>
\n\u2014Eric Pankey<\/b><\/p>\nAbout the author<\/h3>\n