Mike Scalise

In light of last week’s call to people I know to do something newsworthy, I’m very pleased to announce that DC-area poet and person I know Brian Brodeur’s excellent debut collection, “Other Latitudes”, is available for purchase. The collection comes as a result of Brodeur winning the 2007 Akron Poetry Prize. Here is a description:

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 Other Latitudes begin 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’s debut illustrates the conflict between inner lives and their outward appearances, with an eye turned to the unforgiving natural world.

The best way I can describe Brodeur’s work is that it’s compulsively readable. His language is precise but forthright, with a clear vision and a crisp voice that engages with humor, drama, and irreverence honestly, with zero pretense. (Stephen Dunn, Carolyn Forche, and Eric Pankey explain this better in the blurbs.) My favorite of his poems, for instance, features a one-hundred percent blind man who–with the touching help of his wife–spends his weekends actually rifle-hunting for deer. Also, he is not Canadian, which is what I originally thought before I met the guy.

All of this is to say: buy the book. You can read some of Brodeur’s work here, and you can buy Other Latitudes here.

University of Akron Press: Other Latitudes by Brian Brodeur (link)