Bluestone: New and Selected Poems

Though he’s been a published author for nearly three decades, I first came across James Lasdun’s work when perusing a local bookstore when his controversial, polarizing 2013 memoir Give Me Everything You Have: On Being Stalked was the subject of much conversation. Despite the mainstream attention he got for Give Me Everything You Have, Lasdun is much better known, and revered, as a poet. And rightly so. The first hundred pages of his new collection Bluestone: New and Selected Poems deal with previously published poetry, but the rest of the collection is new. Lasdun doesn’t disappoint. For those unfamiliar with Lasdun’s poetry, this collection serves as an outstanding sample of his tremendous skill as a narrative poet. Lasdun utilizes vivid imagery to create vibrant scenes and stories, which essentially serve as odes to nature and the human form. If you’re feeling cynical, that the world lacks beauty these days, Lasdun’s Bluestone will remind you just how lovely—and haunting—it can be.