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Smoke
Laux weaves the warp and woof of ordinary life into extraordinary and complex tapestries.
- GenresPoetry
65 pages, Hardcover
First published October 1, 2000
14 people are currently reading
489 people want to read
About the author
Dorianne Laux
40 books619 followersDORIANNE LAUX’s most recent collection is Life On Earth. Only As The Day Is Long: New and Selected, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. She is also author of The Book of Men (W.W. Norton) which won the Paterson Prize for Poetry. Her fourth book of poems, Facts about the Moon (W.W. Norton), is the recipient of the Oregon Book Award, chosen by Ai. It was also short-listed for the 2006 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize for the most outstanding book of poems published in the United States and chosen by the Kansas City Star as a noteworthy book of 2005. A finalist for the National Book Critics' Circle Award, Laux is also author of three collections of poetry from BOA Editions, Awake (1990) introduced by Philip Levine, What We Carry (1994) and Smoke (2000). Red Dragonfly Press released The Book of Women in 2012. Co-author of The Poet's Companion, she’s the recipient of three Best American Poetry Prizes, a Pushcart Prize, two fellowships from The National Endowment for the Arts and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Her work has appeared in the Best of the American Poetry Review, The Norton Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, and she’s a frequent contributor to magazines as various as Tinhouse, Orion, Oxford American and Ms. Magazine. Laux has waited tables and written poems in San Diego, Los Angeles, Berkeley, and Petaluma, California, and as far north as Juneau, Alaska. She has taught poetry at the University of Oregon and is founding faculty at Pacific University’s Low Residency MFA Program. In 2008 she and her husband, poet Joseph Millar, moved to Raleigh where she directs the program In Creative Writing at North Carolina State University. She is founding faculty for Pacific University's Low Residency MFA Program.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 44 reviews
January 27, 2009
I have found that the poets who speak to me are the ones who find the magic in ordinary life. This is what Dorianne does with all her work. This volume in particular has a great deal of pain in it, clearly she had suffered the loss of someone very close to her. But she is able to express that pain in a way that is so clear and understandable.
One of the things I find most appealing about her work is the ordinariness of her language. I have shared several of her poems with my daughter, as a way of opening this world of poetry to her. A truly magical book.
Here is one of my favorites -
Death Comes To Me Again, A Girl
Death comes to me again, a girl in a cotton slip.
Barefoot, giggling,. It’s not so terrible, she tells me,
not like you think: all darkness and silence.
There are wind chimes and the scent of lemons.
Some days it rains, But more often the air
is dry and sweet. We sit beneath the staircase
built from hair and bone and listen
to the voices of the living.
I like it, she says, shaking the dust from her hair.
Especially when they fight, and when they sing.
One of the things I find most appealing about her work is the ordinariness of her language. I have shared several of her poems with my daughter, as a way of opening this world of poetry to her. A truly magical book.
Here is one of my favorites -
Death Comes To Me Again, A Girl
Death comes to me again, a girl in a cotton slip.
Barefoot, giggling,. It’s not so terrible, she tells me,
not like you think: all darkness and silence.
There are wind chimes and the scent of lemons.
Some days it rains, But more often the air
is dry and sweet. We sit beneath the staircase
built from hair and bone and listen
to the voices of the living.
I like it, she says, shaking the dust from her hair.
Especially when they fight, and when they sing.
August 13, 2023
3.5 stars!
TRYING TO RAISE THE DEAD
Look at me. I’m standing on a deck
in the middle of Oregon. There are
people inside the house. It’s not my
house, you don’t know them.
They’re drinking and singing
and playing guitars. You love
this song. Remember? “Ophelia.”
Boards on the windows, mail
by the door. I’m whispering
so they won’t think I’m crazy.
They don’t know me that well.
Where are you now? I feel stupid.
I’m talking to trees, to leaves
swarming on the black air, stars
blinking in and out of heart-
shaped shadows, to the moon, half-
lit and barren, stuck like an ax
between the branches. What are you
now? Air? Mist? Dust? Light?
What? Give me something. I have
to know where to send my voice.
A direction. An object. My love, it needs
a place to rest. Say anything. I’m listening.
I’m ready to believe. Even lies, I don’t care.
Say, burning bush. Say, stone. They’ve
stopped singing now and I really should go.
So tell me, quickly. It’s April. I’m
on Spring Street. That’s my gray car
in the driveway. They’re laughing
and dancing. Someone’s bound
to show up soon. I’m waving.
Give me a sign if you can see me.
I’m the only one here on my knees.
ABSCHIED SYMPHONY
Someone I love is dying, which is why,
when I turn the key in the ignition
and the radio comes on, sudden and loud,
something by Haydn, a diminishing fugue,
then back the car out of the parking space
in the underground garage, maneuvering through
the dimly lit tunnels, under low ceilings,
following yellow arrows stenciled at intervals
on gray cement walls and I think of him,
moving slowly through the last
hard days of his life, I won’t
turn it off, and I can’t stop crying.
When I arrive at the tollgate I have to make
myself stop thinking as I dig in my pockets
for the last of my coins, turn to the attendant,
indifferent in his blue smock, his white hair
curling like smoke around his weathered neck,
and say, Thank you, like an idiot, and drive
into the blinding midday light.
Everything is hideously symbolic:
the Chevron truck, its underbelly
spattered with road grit and the sweat
of last night’s rain, the Dumpster
behind the flower shop, sprung lid
pressed down on dead wedding bouquets—
even the smell of something simple, coffee
drifting from the open door of a café;
and my eyes glaze over, ache in their sockets.
For months now all I’ve wanted is the blessing
of inattention, to move carefully from room to room
in my small house, numb with forgetfulness.
To eat a bowl of cereal and not imagine him,
drawn thin and pale, unable to swallow.
How not to imagine the tumors
ripening beneath his skin, flesh
I have kissed, stroked with my fingertips,
pressed my belly and breasts against, some nights
so hard I thought I could enter him, open
his back at the spine like a door or a curtain
and slip in like a small fish between his ribs,
nudge the coral of his brain with my lips,
brushing over the blue coils of his bowels
with the fluted silk of my tail.
Death is not romantic. He is dying. That fact
is stark and one-dimensional, a black note
on an empty staff. My feet are cold,
but not as cold as his, and I hate this music
that floods the cramped insides
of my car, my head, slowing the world down
with its lurid majesty, transforming
everything I see into stained memorials
to life—even the old Ford ahead of me,
its battered rear end thinned to scallops of rust,
pumping grim shrouds of exhaust
into the shimmering air—even the tenacious
nasturtiums clinging to a fence, stem and bloom
of the insignificant, music spooling
from their open faces, spilling upward, past
the last rim of blue and into the black pool
of another galaxy. As if all that emptiness
were a place of benevolence, a destination,
a peace we could rise to.
PRAYER
Sweet Jesus, let her save you, let her take
your hands and hold them to her breasts,
slip the sandals from your feet, lay your body down
on sheets beaten clean against the fountain stones.
Let her rest her dark head on your chest,
let her tongue lift the fine hairs like a sword tip
parting the reeds, let her lips burnish
your neck, let your eyes be wet with pleasure.
Let her keep you from that other life, as a mother
keeps a child from the brick lip of a well,
though the rope and bucket shine and clang,
though the water’s hidden silk and mystery call.
Let her patter soothe you and her passions
distract you; let her show you the light
storming the windows of her kitchen, peaches
in a wooden bowl, a small moon of blue cloth
she has sewn to her skirt to cover the tear.
What could be more holy than the curve of her back
as she sits, her hands opening a plum.
What could be more sacred than her eyes,
fierce and complicated as the truth. Your life
rising behind them. Your name on her lips.
Stay there, in her bare house, the black pots
hung from pegs, bread braided and glazed
on the table, a clay jug of violet wine.
There is the daily sacrament of rasp and chisel,
another chair to be made, shelves to be hewn
clean and even and carefully joined
to the sun-scrubbed walls, a small knife
for whittling abandoned scraps of wood
into toys and spoons for the children.
O Jesus, close your eyes and listen to it,
the air is alive with birdcalls and bees,
the dry rustle of palm leaves,
her distracted song as she washes her feet.
Let your death be quiet and ordinary.
Either life you choose will end in her arms.
OH, THE WATER
You are the hero of this poem,
the one who leans into the night
and shoulders the stars, smoking
a cigarette you’ve sworn is your last
before reeling the children into bed.
Or you’re the first worker on the line,
lifting labeled crates onto the dock,
brown arms bare to the elbow,
your shirt smelling of seaweed and soap.
You’re the oldest daughter
of an exhausted mother, an inconsolable
father, sister to the stones thrown down
on your path. You’re the brother
who warms his own brother’s bottle,
whose arm falls asleep along the rail of his crib.
We’ve stood next to you in the checkout line,
watched you flip through tabloids or stare
at the face on the TV Guide as if it were the moon,
your cart full of cereal, toothpaste, shampoo,
day-old bread, bags of gassed fruit,
frozen pizzas on sale for 2.99.
In the car you might slide in a tape,
listen to Van Morrison sing Oh, the water.
You stop at the light and hum along, alone.
When you slam the trunk in the driveway,
spilling the groceries, dropping your keys,
you’re someone’s love, their one brave hope;
and if they don’t run to greet you or help
with the load, they can hear you,
they know you’ve come home.
HOW IT WILL HAPPEN, WHEN
There you are, exhausted from another night of crying,
curled up on the couch, the floor, at the foot of the bed,
anywhere you fall you fall down crying, half amazed
at what the body is capable of, not believing you can cry
anymore. And there they are: his socks, his shirt, your
underwear, and your winter gloves, all in a loose pile
next to the bathroom door, and you fall down again.
Someday, years from now, things will be different:
the house clean for once, everything in its place, windows
shining, sun coming in easily now, skimming across
the thin glaze of wax on the wood floor. You’ll be peeling
an orange or watching a bird leap from the edge of the rooftop
next door, noticing how, for an instant, her body is trapped
in the air, only a moment before gathering the will to fly
into the ruff at her wings, and then doing it: flying.
You’ll be reading, and for a moment you’ll see a word
you don’t recognize, a simple word like cup or gate or wisp
and you’ll ponder it like a child discovering language.
Cup, you’ll say it over and over until it begins to make sense,
and that’s when you’ll say it, for the first time, out loud: He’s dead.
He’s not coming back, and it will be the first time you believe it.
THE STUDENT
She never spoke, which made her obvious,
the way death makes the air obvious
in an empty chair, the way sky compressed
between bare branches is more gray or blue,
the way a window is more apparent than a wall.
She held her silence to her breast like a worn coat,
smoke, an armful of roses. Her silence
colored the smaller silences that came and went,
that other students stood up and filled in.
I leaned near the window in my office. She sat
on the edge of a chair. Hips rigid, fidgeting
while I made my little speech. February
light pressed its cold back against the glass,
sealing us in. She focused on my lips
as I spoke, as if to study how it’s done,
the sheer mechanics of it: orchestration
of jaw and tongue, teeth shifting in tandem,
shaping the air. So I stopped, let her silence
drift over us, let it sift in like smoke or snow,
let its petals settle on my shoulders.
I looked outside to the branches
of a stripped tree, winter starlings
folded in their speckled wings, chilled flames
shuddering at the tips. Students wandered
across campus as if under water, hands and hair
unfurling, their soundless mouths churning—
irate or ecstatic, I couldn’t tell—ready to burn
it all down or break into song. When I looked back
her eyes had found the window: tree, students,
birds swimming by, mute in their element.
It was painful to hear the papery rasp
of her folding and unfolding hands, to watch
color smudging her neck and temple, branching
to mist the delicate rim of one ear. I listened
to the air sunder between us, the feverish hush
collapse. I could hear her breath—smoke
rising from ice. I could see what it cost her
to make that leap. What heat it takes
for the body to blossom into speech.
TRYING TO RAISE THE DEAD
Look at me. I’m standing on a deck
in the middle of Oregon. There are
people inside the house. It’s not my
house, you don’t know them.
They’re drinking and singing
and playing guitars. You love
this song. Remember? “Ophelia.”
Boards on the windows, mail
by the door. I’m whispering
so they won’t think I’m crazy.
They don’t know me that well.
Where are you now? I feel stupid.
I’m talking to trees, to leaves
swarming on the black air, stars
blinking in and out of heart-
shaped shadows, to the moon, half-
lit and barren, stuck like an ax
between the branches. What are you
now? Air? Mist? Dust? Light?
What? Give me something. I have
to know where to send my voice.
A direction. An object. My love, it needs
a place to rest. Say anything. I’m listening.
I’m ready to believe. Even lies, I don’t care.
Say, burning bush. Say, stone. They’ve
stopped singing now and I really should go.
So tell me, quickly. It’s April. I’m
on Spring Street. That’s my gray car
in the driveway. They’re laughing
and dancing. Someone’s bound
to show up soon. I’m waving.
Give me a sign if you can see me.
I’m the only one here on my knees.
ABSCHIED SYMPHONY
Someone I love is dying, which is why,
when I turn the key in the ignition
and the radio comes on, sudden and loud,
something by Haydn, a diminishing fugue,
then back the car out of the parking space
in the underground garage, maneuvering through
the dimly lit tunnels, under low ceilings,
following yellow arrows stenciled at intervals
on gray cement walls and I think of him,
moving slowly through the last
hard days of his life, I won’t
turn it off, and I can’t stop crying.
When I arrive at the tollgate I have to make
myself stop thinking as I dig in my pockets
for the last of my coins, turn to the attendant,
indifferent in his blue smock, his white hair
curling like smoke around his weathered neck,
and say, Thank you, like an idiot, and drive
into the blinding midday light.
Everything is hideously symbolic:
the Chevron truck, its underbelly
spattered with road grit and the sweat
of last night’s rain, the Dumpster
behind the flower shop, sprung lid
pressed down on dead wedding bouquets—
even the smell of something simple, coffee
drifting from the open door of a café;
and my eyes glaze over, ache in their sockets.
For months now all I’ve wanted is the blessing
of inattention, to move carefully from room to room
in my small house, numb with forgetfulness.
To eat a bowl of cereal and not imagine him,
drawn thin and pale, unable to swallow.
How not to imagine the tumors
ripening beneath his skin, flesh
I have kissed, stroked with my fingertips,
pressed my belly and breasts against, some nights
so hard I thought I could enter him, open
his back at the spine like a door or a curtain
and slip in like a small fish between his ribs,
nudge the coral of his brain with my lips,
brushing over the blue coils of his bowels
with the fluted silk of my tail.
Death is not romantic. He is dying. That fact
is stark and one-dimensional, a black note
on an empty staff. My feet are cold,
but not as cold as his, and I hate this music
that floods the cramped insides
of my car, my head, slowing the world down
with its lurid majesty, transforming
everything I see into stained memorials
to life—even the old Ford ahead of me,
its battered rear end thinned to scallops of rust,
pumping grim shrouds of exhaust
into the shimmering air—even the tenacious
nasturtiums clinging to a fence, stem and bloom
of the insignificant, music spooling
from their open faces, spilling upward, past
the last rim of blue and into the black pool
of another galaxy. As if all that emptiness
were a place of benevolence, a destination,
a peace we could rise to.
PRAYER
Sweet Jesus, let her save you, let her take
your hands and hold them to her breasts,
slip the sandals from your feet, lay your body down
on sheets beaten clean against the fountain stones.
Let her rest her dark head on your chest,
let her tongue lift the fine hairs like a sword tip
parting the reeds, let her lips burnish
your neck, let your eyes be wet with pleasure.
Let her keep you from that other life, as a mother
keeps a child from the brick lip of a well,
though the rope and bucket shine and clang,
though the water’s hidden silk and mystery call.
Let her patter soothe you and her passions
distract you; let her show you the light
storming the windows of her kitchen, peaches
in a wooden bowl, a small moon of blue cloth
she has sewn to her skirt to cover the tear.
What could be more holy than the curve of her back
as she sits, her hands opening a plum.
What could be more sacred than her eyes,
fierce and complicated as the truth. Your life
rising behind them. Your name on her lips.
Stay there, in her bare house, the black pots
hung from pegs, bread braided and glazed
on the table, a clay jug of violet wine.
There is the daily sacrament of rasp and chisel,
another chair to be made, shelves to be hewn
clean and even and carefully joined
to the sun-scrubbed walls, a small knife
for whittling abandoned scraps of wood
into toys and spoons for the children.
O Jesus, close your eyes and listen to it,
the air is alive with birdcalls and bees,
the dry rustle of palm leaves,
her distracted song as she washes her feet.
Let your death be quiet and ordinary.
Either life you choose will end in her arms.
OH, THE WATER
You are the hero of this poem,
the one who leans into the night
and shoulders the stars, smoking
a cigarette you’ve sworn is your last
before reeling the children into bed.
Or you’re the first worker on the line,
lifting labeled crates onto the dock,
brown arms bare to the elbow,
your shirt smelling of seaweed and soap.
You’re the oldest daughter
of an exhausted mother, an inconsolable
father, sister to the stones thrown down
on your path. You’re the brother
who warms his own brother’s bottle,
whose arm falls asleep along the rail of his crib.
We’ve stood next to you in the checkout line,
watched you flip through tabloids or stare
at the face on the TV Guide as if it were the moon,
your cart full of cereal, toothpaste, shampoo,
day-old bread, bags of gassed fruit,
frozen pizzas on sale for 2.99.
In the car you might slide in a tape,
listen to Van Morrison sing Oh, the water.
You stop at the light and hum along, alone.
When you slam the trunk in the driveway,
spilling the groceries, dropping your keys,
you’re someone’s love, their one brave hope;
and if they don’t run to greet you or help
with the load, they can hear you,
they know you’ve come home.
HOW IT WILL HAPPEN, WHEN
There you are, exhausted from another night of crying,
curled up on the couch, the floor, at the foot of the bed,
anywhere you fall you fall down crying, half amazed
at what the body is capable of, not believing you can cry
anymore. And there they are: his socks, his shirt, your
underwear, and your winter gloves, all in a loose pile
next to the bathroom door, and you fall down again.
Someday, years from now, things will be different:
the house clean for once, everything in its place, windows
shining, sun coming in easily now, skimming across
the thin glaze of wax on the wood floor. You’ll be peeling
an orange or watching a bird leap from the edge of the rooftop
next door, noticing how, for an instant, her body is trapped
in the air, only a moment before gathering the will to fly
into the ruff at her wings, and then doing it: flying.
You’ll be reading, and for a moment you’ll see a word
you don’t recognize, a simple word like cup or gate or wisp
and you’ll ponder it like a child discovering language.
Cup, you’ll say it over and over until it begins to make sense,
and that’s when you’ll say it, for the first time, out loud: He’s dead.
He’s not coming back, and it will be the first time you believe it.
THE STUDENT
She never spoke, which made her obvious,
the way death makes the air obvious
in an empty chair, the way sky compressed
between bare branches is more gray or blue,
the way a window is more apparent than a wall.
She held her silence to her breast like a worn coat,
smoke, an armful of roses. Her silence
colored the smaller silences that came and went,
that other students stood up and filled in.
I leaned near the window in my office. She sat
on the edge of a chair. Hips rigid, fidgeting
while I made my little speech. February
light pressed its cold back against the glass,
sealing us in. She focused on my lips
as I spoke, as if to study how it’s done,
the sheer mechanics of it: orchestration
of jaw and tongue, teeth shifting in tandem,
shaping the air. So I stopped, let her silence
drift over us, let it sift in like smoke or snow,
let its petals settle on my shoulders.
I looked outside to the branches
of a stripped tree, winter starlings
folded in their speckled wings, chilled flames
shuddering at the tips. Students wandered
across campus as if under water, hands and hair
unfurling, their soundless mouths churning—
irate or ecstatic, I couldn’t tell—ready to burn
it all down or break into song. When I looked back
her eyes had found the window: tree, students,
birds swimming by, mute in their element.
It was painful to hear the papery rasp
of her folding and unfolding hands, to watch
color smudging her neck and temple, branching
to mist the delicate rim of one ear. I listened
to the air sunder between us, the feverish hush
collapse. I could hear her breath—smoke
rising from ice. I could see what it cost her
to make that leap. What heat it takes
for the body to blossom into speech.
February 23, 2017
These are accessible verses grounded in a poetic transformation of the tangibles of everyday objects in everyday life. There are radiant journeys that lovers of poetry, and lovers of life, can be swept into. I find myself wanting to swear eternal fealty to the doctrine and erotic tenor of Laux's magnificent Prayer.
Broken into two sections—Smoke, and Fire. Paradoxically, I overwhelmingly preferred the sensuality, focus, and intensity of the Smoke section over Fire.
I was jarred by two clumsy cultural missteps that left me shaking my head. White poets beware. In The Line she refers to a black child's hair as nappy, which is a derogatory, hate-based term, and should properly be referred to as kinky or more accurately (and to my ears more poetic) as 4c curl. I also winced reading Reetika Arranges My Closet where stereotype seems to be what defines the Asian character with her "hair so black it's blue" and "Reetika's oolong eyes." The poet has an Asian friend seems the not-so-subtle point of that work. Ay yi yi.
Broken into two sections—Smoke, and Fire. Paradoxically, I overwhelmingly preferred the sensuality, focus, and intensity of the Smoke section over Fire.
I was jarred by two clumsy cultural missteps that left me shaking my head. White poets beware. In The Line she refers to a black child's hair as nappy, which is a derogatory, hate-based term, and should properly be referred to as kinky or more accurately (and to my ears more poetic) as 4c curl. I also winced reading Reetika Arranges My Closet where stereotype seems to be what defines the Asian character with her "hair so black it's blue" and "Reetika's oolong eyes." The poet has an Asian friend seems the not-so-subtle point of that work. Ay yi yi.
January 17, 2016
I must be on my tenth read of this collection. And I'll probably double that in the next few years. Something about Laux just draws you back, again and again. Could be what a wordsmith she is, that rare combination of raw and deep, brilliance and simplicity. A new way of looking at myself.
July 12, 2025
poets think of language and words in a different perspective and laux does just that. some of the poems were misses but only 5 per cent of them. but i discovered manu of my favourites here so it's a good read.
Read
June 13, 2020Earthy, particular, funny; poignantly, tenderly human.
June 13, 2016
Melancholic.. Poignant.. Sarcastic.. An honest and moody tone.. A continuous provocation of visual images.. It's like she is narrating her daily life, her break downs and her nostalgic memories with a simple yet a very surprising language .. Beautiful
I was introduced to Laux' poetry after randomly reading her poem titled "Shipfitter's Wife" from this collection titled "Smoke".
Here is a video with the poem recited by Kara Johnstad and accompanied with music..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZl2e...
From this collection
( H e a r t )
"The heart shifts shape of its own accord—
from bird to ax, from pinwheel
to budded branch. It rolls over in the chest,
a brown bear groggy with winter, skips
like a child at the fair, stopping in the shade
of the fireworks booth, the fat lady's tent,
the corn dog stand. Or the heart
is an empty room where the ghosts of the dead
wait, paging through magazines, licking
their skinless thumbs. One gets up, walks
through a door into a maze of hallways.
Behind one door a roomful of orchids,
behind another, the smell of burned toast.
The rooms go on and on: sewing room
with its squeaky treadle, its bright needles,
room full of file cabinets and torn curtains,
room buzzing with a thousand black flies.
Or the heart closes its doors, becomes smoke,
a wispy lie, curls like a worm and forgets
its life, burrows into the fleshy dirt.
Heart makes a wrong turn.
Heart locked in its gate of thorns.
Heart with its hands folded in its lap.
Heart a blue skiff parting the silk of the lake.
It does what it wants, takes what it needs, eats
when it's hungry, sleeps when the soul shuts down.
Bored, it watches movies deep into the night,
stands by the window counting the streetlamps
squinting out one by one.
Heart with its hundred mouths open.
Heart with its hundred eyes closed.
Harmonica heart, heart of tinsel,
heart of cement, broken teeth, redwood fence.
Heart of bricks and boards, books stacked
in devoted rows, their dusty spines
unreadable. Heart
with its hands full.
Hieroglyph heart, etched deep with history's lists,
things to do. Near-sighted heart. Club-footed heart.
Hard-headed heart. Heart of gold, coal.
Bad juju heart, singing the low down blues.
Choir boy heart. Heart in a frumpy robe.
Heart with its feet up reading the scores.
Homeless heart, dozing, its back against the Dumpster.
Cop-on-the-beat heart with its black billy club,
banging on the lid."
(L a s t W o r d s)
"His voice, toward the end, was a soft coal breaking
open in the little stove of his heart. One day
he just let go and the birds stopped singing.
Then the other deaths came on, as if by permission--
beloved teacher, cousin, a lover slipped from my life
the way a rope slithers from your grip, the ocean
folding over it, your fingers stripped of flesh. A deck
of cards worn smooth at a kitchen table, the jack
of spades laid down at last, his face thumbed to threads.
An ashtray full of pebbles on the window ledge, wave-beaten,
gathered at day's end from a beach your mind has never left,
then a starling climbs the pine outside--
the cat's black paw, the past shattered, the stones
rolled to their forever-hidden places. Even the poets
I had taken to my soul: Levis, Matthews, Levertov--
the books of poetry, lost or stolen, left on airport benches,
shabby trade paperbacks of my childhood, the box
misplaced, the one suitcase that mattered crushed
to nothing in the belly of a train. I took a rubbing
of the carved wings and lilies from a headstone
outside Philadelphia, frosted gin bottles
stationed like soldiers on her grave:
The Best Blues Singer in the World
Will Never Stop Singing.
How many losses does it take to stop a heart,
to lay waste to the vocabularies of desire?
Each one came rushing through the rooms he left.
Mouths open. Last words flown up into the trees."
I was introduced to Laux' poetry after randomly reading her poem titled "Shipfitter's Wife" from this collection titled "Smoke".
Here is a video with the poem recited by Kara Johnstad and accompanied with music..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZl2e...
From this collection
( H e a r t )
"The heart shifts shape of its own accord—
from bird to ax, from pinwheel
to budded branch. It rolls over in the chest,
a brown bear groggy with winter, skips
like a child at the fair, stopping in the shade
of the fireworks booth, the fat lady's tent,
the corn dog stand. Or the heart
is an empty room where the ghosts of the dead
wait, paging through magazines, licking
their skinless thumbs. One gets up, walks
through a door into a maze of hallways.
Behind one door a roomful of orchids,
behind another, the smell of burned toast.
The rooms go on and on: sewing room
with its squeaky treadle, its bright needles,
room full of file cabinets and torn curtains,
room buzzing with a thousand black flies.
Or the heart closes its doors, becomes smoke,
a wispy lie, curls like a worm and forgets
its life, burrows into the fleshy dirt.
Heart makes a wrong turn.
Heart locked in its gate of thorns.
Heart with its hands folded in its lap.
Heart a blue skiff parting the silk of the lake.
It does what it wants, takes what it needs, eats
when it's hungry, sleeps when the soul shuts down.
Bored, it watches movies deep into the night,
stands by the window counting the streetlamps
squinting out one by one.
Heart with its hundred mouths open.
Heart with its hundred eyes closed.
Harmonica heart, heart of tinsel,
heart of cement, broken teeth, redwood fence.
Heart of bricks and boards, books stacked
in devoted rows, their dusty spines
unreadable. Heart
with its hands full.
Hieroglyph heart, etched deep with history's lists,
things to do. Near-sighted heart. Club-footed heart.
Hard-headed heart. Heart of gold, coal.
Bad juju heart, singing the low down blues.
Choir boy heart. Heart in a frumpy robe.
Heart with its feet up reading the scores.
Homeless heart, dozing, its back against the Dumpster.
Cop-on-the-beat heart with its black billy club,
banging on the lid."
(L a s t W o r d s)
"His voice, toward the end, was a soft coal breaking
open in the little stove of his heart. One day
he just let go and the birds stopped singing.
Then the other deaths came on, as if by permission--
beloved teacher, cousin, a lover slipped from my life
the way a rope slithers from your grip, the ocean
folding over it, your fingers stripped of flesh. A deck
of cards worn smooth at a kitchen table, the jack
of spades laid down at last, his face thumbed to threads.
An ashtray full of pebbles on the window ledge, wave-beaten,
gathered at day's end from a beach your mind has never left,
then a starling climbs the pine outside--
the cat's black paw, the past shattered, the stones
rolled to their forever-hidden places. Even the poets
I had taken to my soul: Levis, Matthews, Levertov--
the books of poetry, lost or stolen, left on airport benches,
shabby trade paperbacks of my childhood, the box
misplaced, the one suitcase that mattered crushed
to nothing in the belly of a train. I took a rubbing
of the carved wings and lilies from a headstone
outside Philadelphia, frosted gin bottles
stationed like soldiers on her grave:
The Best Blues Singer in the World
Will Never Stop Singing.
How many losses does it take to stop a heart,
to lay waste to the vocabularies of desire?
Each one came rushing through the rooms he left.
Mouths open. Last words flown up into the trees."
July 8, 2021
An entire book of this: the banal holding hands with the breathtaking.
Dorianne Laux is your neighbor. The gal whose car needs an oil change, the gal who cuts her hair in the kitchen while her cigarette sits on the edge of the sink, a sink with cracked enamel and a few yellow nicotine singes along the countertop- where she forgot she left a cigarette burning.
She is our neighbor, our kid's teacher going through a rough divorce, the gal who has worked at the corner supermarket for so long, that she feels like a cousin, even though you don't remember her name. A solid presence in our otherwise impermanent lives.
Albeit, Dorianne is the most skilled neighbor you will ever borrow a cup of sugar from, or share a glass of wine at a kitchen table. A table with not one matching chair, or who will give you a ride to the bus stop when you are running late.
She is the neighbor who can take a benign day and weave it into high art. She is seamlessly able to bring day to day life and have it gently hold hands with high art.
Smoke***
So you listen and listen
and smoke and give thanks, suck deep
with the grace of the living, blowing halos
and nooses and zeros, and rings, the blue chains
linking around your head. Then you pull it in
again, the vein colored smoke,
and blow it up toward a ceiling you can't see
where it lingers like a sweetness you can never hold,
like the ghost the night will become.
***
ARRGGH! So gorgeous! I despise cigarette smoking and Dorianne made it beautiful. Painfully beautiful:
"the vein colored smoke"
Now, I will never see cigarette smoke without seeing the blue tinge of a vein and the layers of meaning: the nicotine, the blood, the skin, the all of it. Damn you Dorianne for making smoking so lovely.
Last Words***
His voice, towards the end, was a soft coal breaking
open in the little stove of his heart.
(the last verse)
How many losses does it take to stop a heart,
to lay waste to the vocabularies of desire?
Each one came rushing through the rooms he left.
Mouths open. Last words flown up into the trees.
Books***
...You don't know it yet but what you'll miss
is the books, heavy and fragrant and frayed,
the pages greasy, almost transparent, thinned
at the edges by hundreds of licked thumbs.
What you'll remember is the dumb joy
of stumbling across a passage so perfect
it drums in your head, drowns out
the teacher and the lunch bell's ring. You've stolen
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn from the library.
Lingering on the steps, you dig in your bag
to touch its heat: stolen goods, willfully taken,
in full knowledge of right and wrong.
You call yourself a thief. There are worse things...
This is all you need as you take your first step
toward the street, joining characters whose lives
might unfold at your touch. You follow them into
the blur of the world. Into whoever you're going to be.
****************************
It may be the librarian in me, or maybe it's the young girl I was, who was kicked out of school unfairly, or who never fit in at her small redneck high school, but this poem, Books, makes me want to fall onto the ground and speak in tongues. Too much gorgeousness, in too small of a space makes me all swoony inside.
So much of Smoke is about death and I am here for it.
*************************
Death Comes to Me Again, a Girl***
Ray at 14***
Abschied Symphony***
For months now all I've wanted is the blessing
of inattention, to move carefully from room to room
in my small house, numb with forgetfulness.
Trying to Raise the Dead***
...A direction. An object. My love, it needs
a place to rest. Say anything. I'm listening.
I'm ready to believe. Even lies, I don't care.
Dorianne Laux is your neighbor. The gal whose car needs an oil change, the gal who cuts her hair in the kitchen while her cigarette sits on the edge of the sink, a sink with cracked enamel and a few yellow nicotine singes along the countertop- where she forgot she left a cigarette burning.
She is our neighbor, our kid's teacher going through a rough divorce, the gal who has worked at the corner supermarket for so long, that she feels like a cousin, even though you don't remember her name. A solid presence in our otherwise impermanent lives.
Albeit, Dorianne is the most skilled neighbor you will ever borrow a cup of sugar from, or share a glass of wine at a kitchen table. A table with not one matching chair, or who will give you a ride to the bus stop when you are running late.
She is the neighbor who can take a benign day and weave it into high art. She is seamlessly able to bring day to day life and have it gently hold hands with high art.
Smoke***
So you listen and listen
and smoke and give thanks, suck deep
with the grace of the living, blowing halos
and nooses and zeros, and rings, the blue chains
linking around your head. Then you pull it in
again, the vein colored smoke,
and blow it up toward a ceiling you can't see
where it lingers like a sweetness you can never hold,
like the ghost the night will become.
***
ARRGGH! So gorgeous! I despise cigarette smoking and Dorianne made it beautiful. Painfully beautiful:
"the vein colored smoke"
Now, I will never see cigarette smoke without seeing the blue tinge of a vein and the layers of meaning: the nicotine, the blood, the skin, the all of it. Damn you Dorianne for making smoking so lovely.
Last Words***
His voice, towards the end, was a soft coal breaking
open in the little stove of his heart.
(the last verse)
How many losses does it take to stop a heart,
to lay waste to the vocabularies of desire?
Each one came rushing through the rooms he left.
Mouths open. Last words flown up into the trees.
Books***
...You don't know it yet but what you'll miss
is the books, heavy and fragrant and frayed,
the pages greasy, almost transparent, thinned
at the edges by hundreds of licked thumbs.
What you'll remember is the dumb joy
of stumbling across a passage so perfect
it drums in your head, drowns out
the teacher and the lunch bell's ring. You've stolen
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn from the library.
Lingering on the steps, you dig in your bag
to touch its heat: stolen goods, willfully taken,
in full knowledge of right and wrong.
You call yourself a thief. There are worse things...
This is all you need as you take your first step
toward the street, joining characters whose lives
might unfold at your touch. You follow them into
the blur of the world. Into whoever you're going to be.
****************************
It may be the librarian in me, or maybe it's the young girl I was, who was kicked out of school unfairly, or who never fit in at her small redneck high school, but this poem, Books, makes me want to fall onto the ground and speak in tongues. Too much gorgeousness, in too small of a space makes me all swoony inside.
So much of Smoke is about death and I am here for it.
*************************
Death Comes to Me Again, a Girl***
Ray at 14***
Abschied Symphony***
For months now all I've wanted is the blessing
of inattention, to move carefully from room to room
in my small house, numb with forgetfulness.
Trying to Raise the Dead***
...A direction. An object. My love, it needs
a place to rest. Say anything. I'm listening.
I'm ready to believe. Even lies, I don't care.
February 28, 2008
The first half of "Smoke" is 'Smoke' - every poem is crushing. Lots are about death and loss - I had to stop reading at work because it was making me too weepy. I LOVED the first half. The second half - 'Fire' is still great - but not as magical for me as the first half, but still masterful writing (duh). Portlandians will like the Oregon references.
One of my favorites:
HOW IT WILL HAPPEN, WHEN
There you are, exhausted from another night of crying,
curled up on the couch, the floor, at the foot of the bed,
anywhere you fall you fall down crying, half amazed
at what the body is capable of, not believing you can cry
anymore. And there they are: his socks, his shirt, your
underwear, and your winter gloves, all in a loose pile
next to the bathroom door, and you fall down again.
Someday, years from now, things will be different:
the house clean for once, everything in its place, windows
shining, sun coming in easily now, skimming across
the thin glaze of wax on the wood floor. You’ll be peeling
an orange or watching a bird leap from the edge of the rooftop
next door, noticing how, for instance, her body is trapped
in the air, only a moment before gathering the will to fly
into the ruff at her wings, and then doing it: flying.
You’ll be reading, and for a moment you’ll see a word
you don’t recognize, a simple words like cup or gate or wisp
and you’ll ponder like a child discovering language.
Cup, you’ll say over and over until it begins to make sense,
and that’s when you’ll say it, for the first time, out loud: He’s dead.
He’s not coming back, and it will be the first time you believe it.
One of my favorites:
HOW IT WILL HAPPEN, WHEN
There you are, exhausted from another night of crying,
curled up on the couch, the floor, at the foot of the bed,
anywhere you fall you fall down crying, half amazed
at what the body is capable of, not believing you can cry
anymore. And there they are: his socks, his shirt, your
underwear, and your winter gloves, all in a loose pile
next to the bathroom door, and you fall down again.
Someday, years from now, things will be different:
the house clean for once, everything in its place, windows
shining, sun coming in easily now, skimming across
the thin glaze of wax on the wood floor. You’ll be peeling
an orange or watching a bird leap from the edge of the rooftop
next door, noticing how, for instance, her body is trapped
in the air, only a moment before gathering the will to fly
into the ruff at her wings, and then doing it: flying.
You’ll be reading, and for a moment you’ll see a word
you don’t recognize, a simple words like cup or gate or wisp
and you’ll ponder like a child discovering language.
Cup, you’ll say over and over until it begins to make sense,
and that’s when you’ll say it, for the first time, out loud: He’s dead.
He’s not coming back, and it will be the first time you believe it.
August 15, 2015
Laux combines what most poets cannot: a deep sensibility and accessibility. Each page was candy, I kept reading and reading, and well, that's the last page. I didn't want to put it down. Time to pick up her next book. It's that good.
November 19, 2010
My favorite book of poetry. Includes "The Word" and "The Shipfitter's Wife," which appeared in Best American Poetry.
June 23, 2025
I did not fully connect with this collection. The poems are layered, with details piled on details until I sometimes got lost in the wordiness. But, there are also poems which I read breathlessly, reeling in the sheer magic of the language. Laux has a way of sticking the ending that is satisfying and necessary for the poem to carry its weight out beyond the confines of the mere words on the page.
April 27, 2023
This is a collection that seems more elegiac than some of Laux's other work: honest, slightly sad, sometimes saucy. The language is maximalist, layering mood and description, in ways that almost veer into the tedious but often veers into raw and heart-felt. It's a surprising collection despite its focus on daily life and moving through it's small tragedies and triumphs.
August 15, 2018
As I looked at other reviews of this book, it seems that many readers find a great resonance with this collection. I find that my hard doesn't intersect with Laux's hard in ways that connect me to these poems, though I did enjoy the way she could deliver in the final lines.
August 8, 2018
The first book of contemporary poetry that I loved.
September 2, 2018
I loved this book especially the poem Pearl about Janis Joplin.
August 18, 2020
Beautifying the ugly through succinct description. There's nothing more to say. You must read this book of poems if you aim to write poems, and if you're devoid of beauty in your life.
December 19, 2021
This collection brilliantly shines light on frequently overlooked corners everywhere.
May 21, 2023
Smoke, by Dorianne Laux
Damn good book! Really enjoyed the poems and appreciated the craft. Oh the longing in the first part of the book!
Damn good book! Really enjoyed the poems and appreciated the craft. Oh the longing in the first part of the book!
November 15, 2023
this collection is fucking beautiful. its extraordinary. im never fucking recovering from this. every single line is beautiful. i can't explain how much i love this.
December 3, 2025
i don’t understand how poems about grief can become so comforting, but i love this book. 10/10 second time checking out and reading cover to cover
April 27, 2024
I wrote previously, in my review of Laux's Facts About the Moon, that she shows a talent that spans beyond a particular style or subject matter, a talent that few actually have. This book continues that wonderful effort of how every poem is like reading a short story, in a way, in that Laux takes the time to let us in, get a feel of how she is approaching this poem, as opposed to the others (which can be fault of those who hover too closely to a particular subject matter, in that they sometimes fail to let us in and presume instead we are familiar with their subject, as they are so thoroughly introduced themselves). Take these opening lines from "Trying to Raise the Dead":
Look at me. I'm standing on a deck
in the middle of Oregon. There are
people inside the house. It's not my
house, you don't know them.
Yes, there is an obvious setting being introduced, but there is also a wonderful sense of separation, maybe alienation, with that last run-on sentence, a vibe which the poem carries further.
I was also impressed in this book by the poems that discuss music, a topic that I am often trepidatious about in poetry. In general, I find it hard for people to talk about things they love, especially music, that doesn't sound more like tribal affiliation or hoping to speak to the choir. This element was something that made Anthony Bourdain's writing so fantastic--when he described what was good about food I was familiar with, I found myself in full agreement, which let me look at his descriptions of food I wasn't familiar with and make myself more open to them (fresh mayonnaise wrapped in calf cheek? yes please!). But all too often, people describing things they love come out as vague assertions of quality without showing much sense of that quality, at least to someone who isn't familiar (or worse, in total disagreement). But Laux's poems on "Stairway to Heaven" and Janis Joplin worked quite well for me without feeling like I wasn't in the club.
Laux is quite a talent, and I'm ready to dig into more.
Look at me. I'm standing on a deck
in the middle of Oregon. There are
people inside the house. It's not my
house, you don't know them.
Yes, there is an obvious setting being introduced, but there is also a wonderful sense of separation, maybe alienation, with that last run-on sentence, a vibe which the poem carries further.
I was also impressed in this book by the poems that discuss music, a topic that I am often trepidatious about in poetry. In general, I find it hard for people to talk about things they love, especially music, that doesn't sound more like tribal affiliation or hoping to speak to the choir. This element was something that made Anthony Bourdain's writing so fantastic--when he described what was good about food I was familiar with, I found myself in full agreement, which let me look at his descriptions of food I wasn't familiar with and make myself more open to them (fresh mayonnaise wrapped in calf cheek? yes please!). But all too often, people describing things they love come out as vague assertions of quality without showing much sense of that quality, at least to someone who isn't familiar (or worse, in total disagreement). But Laux's poems on "Stairway to Heaven" and Janis Joplin worked quite well for me without feeling like I wasn't in the club.
Laux is quite a talent, and I'm ready to dig into more.
June 10, 2025
"There’s no music for this scarf of smoke wrapped around your shoulders, itsfingers crawling the pale stem of your neck,
no song light enough, liquid enough,
that climbs high enough before itthins
and disappears."
- smoke
"Death comes to me again, a girl in a cotton slip. Barefoot, giggling. It’s not so terrible, she tells me, not like you think: all darkness and silence.
There are wind chimes and the scent of lemons. Some days itrains. But more often the air isdry and sweet. We sit beneath the staircase built from hair and bone and listen
to the voices of the living.
Ilike it, she says, shaking the dust from her hair. Especially when they fight, and when they sing."
- death comes to me again, a girl
"Cross bridge after bridge,
through ten kinds of rain, past abandoned fireworks booths,
their closed flaps streaked with soot."
- even music
"I ought to tell him about Prometheus
and the vulture, the wildfires
burning in the Oregon hills.
Iwant to do what Ishould
to make him afraid, but his face
isradiant, ablaze with power,
and I can’t take my eyes from the light."
- firestarter
"She was nothing much, this plain-faced girl from Texas, this moonfaced child who opened her mouth
(...)
Girl with the girlish breasts and woman hips, thick-necked, sweat misting her upper lip, hooded eyes raining a wild blue light, hands:reaching out
to the ocean we made, all that anguish and longing swelling and rising at her feet. Didn’t she burn
herself up for us, shaking us alive? That child, that girl, that rawboned woman, stranded
in a storm on a blackened stage like’ a house on fire."
- pearl (on Janis Joplin)
"This is why, sometimes, the grass feels electric under our feet, each blade quivering, and why the air comes undone over our heads
and washes down around our ears like rain. But ithas to be spring, and you have to be in love—acutely, painfully, achingly in love— to hear the black-robed choir of their sighs."
- the orgasms of organisms
"Such abundance. We are gorged, engorging, and gorgeous."
- life is beautiful
no song light enough, liquid enough,
that climbs high enough before itthins
and disappears."
- smoke
"Death comes to me again, a girl in a cotton slip. Barefoot, giggling. It’s not so terrible, she tells me, not like you think: all darkness and silence.
There are wind chimes and the scent of lemons. Some days itrains. But more often the air isdry and sweet. We sit beneath the staircase built from hair and bone and listen
to the voices of the living.
Ilike it, she says, shaking the dust from her hair. Especially when they fight, and when they sing."
- death comes to me again, a girl
"Cross bridge after bridge,
through ten kinds of rain, past abandoned fireworks booths,
their closed flaps streaked with soot."
- even music
"I ought to tell him about Prometheus
and the vulture, the wildfires
burning in the Oregon hills.
Iwant to do what Ishould
to make him afraid, but his face
isradiant, ablaze with power,
and I can’t take my eyes from the light."
- firestarter
"She was nothing much, this plain-faced girl from Texas, this moonfaced child who opened her mouth
(...)
Girl with the girlish breasts and woman hips, thick-necked, sweat misting her upper lip, hooded eyes raining a wild blue light, hands:reaching out
to the ocean we made, all that anguish and longing swelling and rising at her feet. Didn’t she burn
herself up for us, shaking us alive? That child, that girl, that rawboned woman, stranded
in a storm on a blackened stage like’ a house on fire."
- pearl (on Janis Joplin)
"This is why, sometimes, the grass feels electric under our feet, each blade quivering, and why the air comes undone over our heads
and washes down around our ears like rain. But ithas to be spring, and you have to be in love—acutely, painfully, achingly in love— to hear the black-robed choir of their sighs."
- the orgasms of organisms
"Such abundance. We are gorged, engorging, and gorgeous."
- life is beautiful
December 4, 2018
Excellent book of poetry broken into two sections: Smoke and Fire, as in Where there's smoke there's fire. Here is a random example:
THE WORD
by Dorianne Laux
You called it screwing, what we did nights
on the rug in front of the mirror, draped
over the edge of a hotel bed, on balconies
overlooking the dark hearts of fir trees
or a city of flickering lights. You'd
whisper that word into my ear
as if it were a thing you could taste---
a sliver of fish, a swirl of chocolate
on the tongue. I knew only
the rough exuberant consonant
of fucking, and this soft s and hard c
was a new sound---querulous, slow,
like the long moments of leaving
between thrusts. I don't know what
to make of it, now that you're gone. I think
of metal eating wood. Delicate filaments
quivering inside a bulb of thin glass.
Harsh light. Corks easing up through
the wet necks of wine bottles. A silver lid
sealed tight on a jar of skinned plums.
I see two blue dragonflies hovering, end
to end, above a pond, as if twisting
the iridescence deep into each other's
body, abdomens writing, spiraling
into the wing-beaten air. And your voice
comes back to me through the trees, this word
for what we couldn't help but do
to each other---a thin cry, unwinding.
THE WORD
by Dorianne Laux
You called it screwing, what we did nights
on the rug in front of the mirror, draped
over the edge of a hotel bed, on balconies
overlooking the dark hearts of fir trees
or a city of flickering lights. You'd
whisper that word into my ear
as if it were a thing you could taste---
a sliver of fish, a swirl of chocolate
on the tongue. I knew only
the rough exuberant consonant
of fucking, and this soft s and hard c
was a new sound---querulous, slow,
like the long moments of leaving
between thrusts. I don't know what
to make of it, now that you're gone. I think
of metal eating wood. Delicate filaments
quivering inside a bulb of thin glass.
Harsh light. Corks easing up through
the wet necks of wine bottles. A silver lid
sealed tight on a jar of skinned plums.
I see two blue dragonflies hovering, end
to end, above a pond, as if twisting
the iridescence deep into each other's
body, abdomens writing, spiraling
into the wing-beaten air. And your voice
comes back to me through the trees, this word
for what we couldn't help but do
to each other---a thin cry, unwinding.
August 23, 2007
The poems in this collection are simple and heart-breaking. Simple because of Laux's conversational tone and easy way with profound metaphors. Heart-breaking because of her candid honesty which allow her poems to speak with authority and, at the same time, an aching vulnerability. I recommend this book to anyone with a soul.
Ray At 14
Bless this boy, born with the strong face
of my older brother, the one who I loved most,
who jumped with me from the roof
of the playhouse, my hand in his hand.
On Friday nights we watched Twilight Zone
and he let me hold the bowl of popcorn,
a blanket draped over our shoulders,
saying, Don't be afraid. I was never afraid
when I was with my big brother
who let me touch the baseball-sized muscles
living in his arms, who carried me on his back
through the lonely neighborhood,
held tight to the fender of my bike
until I made him let go.
The year he was fourteen
he looked just like Ray, and when he died
at twenty-two on a roadside in Germany
I thought he was gone forever.
But Ray runs into the kitchen: dirty T-shirt,
torn jeans, pushes back his sleeves.
He says, Feel my muscles, and I do.
Ray At 14
Bless this boy, born with the strong face
of my older brother, the one who I loved most,
who jumped with me from the roof
of the playhouse, my hand in his hand.
On Friday nights we watched Twilight Zone
and he let me hold the bowl of popcorn,
a blanket draped over our shoulders,
saying, Don't be afraid. I was never afraid
when I was with my big brother
who let me touch the baseball-sized muscles
living in his arms, who carried me on his back
through the lonely neighborhood,
held tight to the fender of my bike
until I made him let go.
The year he was fourteen
he looked just like Ray, and when he died
at twenty-two on a roadside in Germany
I thought he was gone forever.
But Ray runs into the kitchen: dirty T-shirt,
torn jeans, pushes back his sleeves.
He says, Feel my muscles, and I do.
July 23, 2007
Didn't she burn
herself up for us, shaking us alive?
--from "Pearl"
Reading poems by different authors in a journal or anthology is like being at a party with lots of witty people, going from group to group, sampling subjects like hors d'oeuvres. Every now and then, you meet someone interesting enough to spend the whole evening with.
For me, Dorianne Laux is an author who's worth the time. She's a fearless--sometimes even a ruthless--writer, who's unflinching as she tackles subjects like death and sex, Jesus and Janis Joplin, showing how arbitrary the distinction sometimes is between the sacred and profane.
herself up for us, shaking us alive?
--from "Pearl"
Reading poems by different authors in a journal or anthology is like being at a party with lots of witty people, going from group to group, sampling subjects like hors d'oeuvres. Every now and then, you meet someone interesting enough to spend the whole evening with.
For me, Dorianne Laux is an author who's worth the time. She's a fearless--sometimes even a ruthless--writer, who's unflinching as she tackles subjects like death and sex, Jesus and Janis Joplin, showing how arbitrary the distinction sometimes is between the sacred and profane.
February 21, 2013
His voice, toward the end, was a soft coal breaking
open in the little stove of his heart.
. . . other deaths came on, as if by permission—
beloved teacher, cousin, a lover slipped from my life
the way a rope slithers from your grip
Last Words
. . . Somewhere
a Dumpster is ratcheted open by the claws
of a black machine. All down the block
something inside you opens and shuts.
Smoke
Doesn't this part give you the chills?
We nod in agreement, then settle again
into our separate worlds. In mine
I'm beholden to any boy brave enough
to be stunned, to sit still and hushed
while the grievous tones wash through him
like dusk.
Stairway to Heaven
Such abundance. We are gorged, engorging, and gorgeous.
Life is Beautiful
open in the little stove of his heart.
. . . other deaths came on, as if by permission—
beloved teacher, cousin, a lover slipped from my life
the way a rope slithers from your grip
Last Words
. . . Somewhere
a Dumpster is ratcheted open by the claws
of a black machine. All down the block
something inside you opens and shuts.
Smoke
Doesn't this part give you the chills?
We nod in agreement, then settle again
into our separate worlds. In mine
I'm beholden to any boy brave enough
to be stunned, to sit still and hushed
while the grievous tones wash through him
like dusk.
Stairway to Heaven
Such abundance. We are gorged, engorging, and gorgeous.
Life is Beautiful
November 23, 2007
Poetry. I really enjoy Laux's writing. One of my favorite things about her is the way she uses enjambment -- breaking up a syntactic unit over two lines without a punctuated pause; basically the end of the line is not the end of the thought -- it makes things unpredictable, unsettling, because anything can happen between one line and the next.
This book has a lot of death and mourning in it. It's calm and angry and smoky, yet there's still that lust for life that you find in Laux's poetry, the love of the body and nature -- even the ugly parts.
Some favorites: Books; Abschied Symphony; How It Will Happen, When; Reetika Organizes My Closet.
This book has a lot of death and mourning in it. It's calm and angry and smoky, yet there's still that lust for life that you find in Laux's poetry, the love of the body and nature -- even the ugly parts.
Some favorites: Books; Abschied Symphony; How It Will Happen, When; Reetika Organizes My Closet.
January 10, 2008
Dorianne Laux is my favorite poet of the handful that I've explored. She's simple but beautiful and does amazing things with sound. I teach her work to my students to abate their hatred of poetry--to show them that it does exist in their own language!
July 28, 2008
Really lovely work. I took a master class with this writer and found her generous as a teacher and as a person. Some of the poems show a harder edge--in a good way. And some strive toward more of a zen approach. Nice collection.
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