Superman: The Chapbook

by Dorianne Laux

Six poems. Letterpress printed chapbook. Edition limited to 350 copies.

Genres: Poetry

18 pages, Chapbook

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

DORIANNE 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.

Reviews

[John Mark Eberhart · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is how good a group of poems can be when the writer controls the pop-culture references instead of letting the pop culture references control the writer. Laux's title poem especially is a wonder -- Superman as a mere mortal, or maybe not mere but certainly something closer to us than the Man of Steel we know from comics or TV or films. Fatigued, ill, somewhat detached, he's still somehow heroic but not so super. I loved the poem and the book. Don't be fooled by the designation "chapbook" -- this one belongs in your literary Metropolis.

[Mommy · Rating 5 out of 5]

John
And

[Jeannine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dorianne's Superman is a fabulous collection. She has always been one of my favorite poets, but what I really like about this is that she explores pop culture icons through persona poems. "Superman," the title poem, is in particular an amazing poem.

[Dorianne Laux · Rating 5 out of 5]

Out of print. For a new chapbook by Dorianne Laux, go to

http://www.reddragonflypress.org/musi...

to pre-order

Dark Charms, Red Dragonfly Press, 2010

[Dennis · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love the fresh view of these cultural icons with a twist of humorous narrative. Red Dragonfly Press did a wonderful job printing it--high quality work and worth the price.

[Cassie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I could read "Late Night TV" over and over and over again until everything settled to dust. Seriously.