‘Laux writes gritty, tough, lyrical poems that depict the actual nature of life in the West today.’—Philip Levine

The narrative poems in Dorianne Laux’s fifth collection charge through the summer of love, where Vietnam casts a long shadow, and into the present day, where she compassionately paints the smoky bars, graffiti, and addiction of urban life. Laux is ‘continually engaging and, at her best, luminous’ (
San Diego Union-Tribune).
from ‘To Kiss Frank, ‘
     make out with him a bit, this
     is what my friend would like to do
     oh these too many dead summers later,
     and as much as I want to stroll with her
     into the poet’s hazy fancy
     all I can see is O’Hara’s long gone lips
     fallen free of the bone, slumbering
     beneath the grainy soil.

A propos de l’auteur

Dorianne Laux’s poetry collections include Only as the Day Is Long, finalist for the Pulitzer Prize; The Book of Men, winner of the Paterson Poetry Prize; and Facts about the Moon, winner of the Oregon Book Award. She is the coauthor of The Poet’s Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry. A founding faculty member of Pacific University’s Low Residency MFA Program, she lives in Richmond, California.