Life on Earth
Poems
Published on 9. January 2024
Book
Hardback
112 pages
978-1-324-06582-1 (ISBN)
Description
In her seventh collection, Dorianne Laux once again offers poems that move us, include us, and appreciate us fully as the flawed humans we are. Life on Earth is a book of praise for our planet and ourselves, delivered with Laux's trademark vitality, frank observation, and earthy wisdom.
With odes to the unlikely and elemental-salt, snow, crows, cups, Bisquick, a shovel and rake, the ubiquitous can of WD-40, "the way / it releases the caught cogs / of the world"-Life on Earth urges us all to find extraordinary magic in the mess of ordinary life. "One of our most daring contemporary poets" (Diana Whitney, San Francisco Chronicle), Laux balances wonder at the night sky and the taste of a ripe peach with recognition of the sharp knife of mortality. The volume includes powerful homages to the poet's mother and her carpenter's spirit, reflections on loss and aging, and encounters with the fleeting beauty of the natural world.
Transcending life's inevitable moments of pain and uncertainty, Life on Earth instructs us in our own endless possibilities and the astonishing riches of the world around us.
With odes to the unlikely and elemental-salt, snow, crows, cups, Bisquick, a shovel and rake, the ubiquitous can of WD-40, "the way / it releases the caught cogs / of the world"-Life on Earth urges us all to find extraordinary magic in the mess of ordinary life. "One of our most daring contemporary poets" (Diana Whitney, San Francisco Chronicle), Laux balances wonder at the night sky and the taste of a ripe peach with recognition of the sharp knife of mortality. The volume includes powerful homages to the poet's mother and her carpenter's spirit, reflections on loss and aging, and encounters with the fleeting beauty of the natural world.
Transcending life's inevitable moments of pain and uncertainty, Life on Earth instructs us in our own endless possibilities and the astonishing riches of the world around us.
Reviews / Votes
"With this spellbinding seventh collection, Laux...brings to life the simple pleasures and small agonies of human existence...[she] makes the quotidian feel monumental in a way that is uniquely her own." -- Publishers Weekly (starred review)More details
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Dimensions
Height: 218 mm
Width: 147 mm
Thickness: 15 mm
Weight
286 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-324-06582-1 (9781324065821)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Person
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.