Publisher's Synopsis
Hawaiian Shirts in the Electric Chair REDUX is the reworked and reimagined edition of the classic debut poetry collection from Scott Laudati. Topics include his dog, New York City, aliens, death, New Jersey, love, heroin and pizza. This new edition from Cephalopress also features 10 all new poems, exclusive to this collection.
"The theme seems to be connected to remaining innocent, a will to preserve it, and a fear of losing it." - Elena Pollack, Albany Student Press "Hawaiian Shirts in the Electric Chair reads with the ensemble momentum of a concept album, building nuance and depth via cross-reference and consistency of tone rather than through complexity at line level. Between the suburbs and the city, and all that they stand for in Laudati's oeuvre, there is the ever-present fear not of age itself, but of fading away rather than burning out (that the collection features a poem entitled 'Mick and Keith Pt 1' suggests the reference). That fear informs the collection, is indeed its central theme, whether embodied by its gut-spreading midlifers or the beautiful youth of the depicted urbanites. Escaping mundanity is a mindset, the subtext whispers, and may just as easily achieved (or not) in those maligned suburbs as in the sensation-packed skyscrapers of NYC." - Sean Keenan, Trebuchet-Magazine
