Customer Reviews

Smoke (American Poets Continuum: 62)

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i was drawn to this book mainly because i have read laux's work before in anthologies. i loved the poems in this book because she writes poignantly about the everyday things in life and she takes on taboo subjects like sex and death and domestic violence and give them dignity. i am definately going to check out other works by her

Dorianne Laux, Smoke (BOA Editions, 2000)

My last encounter with Dorianne Laux was almost twenty years ago, in an anthology called Three West Coast Women (Five Fingers Press, 1987). I picked it up in college, and decided after reading it that I wanted to check out more work by Dorianne Laux. Why it took me close to two decades I've no idea, but I finally have.

Smoke is a very, very good book. Laux is one of those poets who uses understatement, and uses it well, preferring to let the poem do the talking:

"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."
(--"Abschied Symphony")

This is definitely one to check out. ****

Dorianne Laux is a wonderful poet. I associate her with Kim Addonzio because of there manual on poetry the wrote together, The Poet's Companion, because they are friends, and because their work has a similar feel (though Laux doesn't write in meter and rhyme like Kim does sometimes). There is this raw emotion, but not just flopped on the page like so much bad poetry. In reading this collection, you see what a craftsman Laux is. Her poems feel raw, they feel spontaneous, but they are finely tuned pieces of art.

The book is divided into two sections, Smoke and Fire. The first section, Smoke, is the stronger section, with poems like "Ray at 14", "Prayer" "How It Will Happen, When" and others. The poems here feel like smoke when you read them. They touch you lightly, but powerfully, bringing forth all these images, sounds, smells, feelings. Like smoke, they sneak up on you, and then hurt you.

"What could be more sacred than her eyes,
fierce and complicated as the truth. Your life
rising behind them. Your name on her lips."
--Prayer

"Death comes to me again, a girl in a cotton slip"
--Death comes to me again, a girl

The second section doesn't differ much. The poems don't come raging at you like fire. No burning here. They are much more like smoke, but it does contain some great work, and has "The Shipfitter's Wife," a beautiful poem that was selected for the Best American Poetry 1999 by Robert Bly. I'm just surprised more of her work hasn't appeared there.

If you love poetry filled with beautiful images, great concrete detail and deeper than just the words on the page, you'll love Dorianne Laux's Smoke. It is accessible poetry,wonderfully crafted and spiritual.