{"product_id":"9781571314840","title":"The Mirrormaker: Poems","description":"In \u003ci\u003eThe Mirrormaker\u003c\/i\u003e, songwriter and poet Brian Laidlaw melds myths ancient and contemporary among the raspberries, wolves, and taconite mines of Minnesota’s Iron Range.\u003cp\u003eA companion volume to Laidlaw’s 2015 project, \u003ci\u003eThe Stuntman\u003c\/i\u003e, this collection fuses the stories of two fabled couples: the mythical Narcissus and Echo, and Bob Dylan and Echo Star Helstrom, subject of the song “Girl from the North Country.” But where \u003ci\u003eThe Stuntman\u003c\/i\u003e focused on Narcissus, \u003ci\u003eThe Mirrormaker\u003c\/i\u003e takes its primary inspiration from Echo, drawing on ecocritical readings of American history and interrogating the masculine logic of resource extraction.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn these poems, Laidlaw explores themes of history and celebrity, love and longing, myth and meaning, in a landscape both ravaged and redemptive. He pits romantic obsession against self-obsession—“The first time I saw the moon \/ I thought it was my idea”—and asks whether a meaningful distinction can ever be drawn between the two. These themes are explored further in a companion song suite, written by Laidlaw and recorded with a longtime collaborator from the Iron Range, that accompanies this book via download.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSharp, searching, and ecstatically musical, \u003ci\u003eThe Mirrormaker\u003c\/i\u003e is a genre-expanding exploration of boom and bust—in mining economies and in young love.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Milkweed Editions","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46406070305009,"sku":"9781571314840","price":16.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0674\/5433\/7265\/files\/9781571314840_p0.jpg?v=1765758909","url":"https:\/\/shop.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781571314840","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble","version":"1.0","type":"link"}