“I like how the words taste in my mouth,” poet Dorianne Laux said at the opener of the Department of English 2007-2008 Reading Series on Tuesday.
“Poetry has saved my life,” she added. “It’s like having a conversation with another person through the page.”
Laux has long received praise for her poetry’s free verse style and her approach of embracing reality in her poems. Most recently, Laux became the recipient of the Oregon Book Award. She was also shortlisted for the 2006 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize for the most outstanding book of poems published in the United States in the previous year.
Poetry instructor Patricia Seyburn introduced Laux by saying, “I have this crazy idea that if (Samuel Taylor) Coleridge were a woman born in the middle of the 20th century, born in northern Maine without an opium addiction, he might be Dorianne Laux.”
Students found much comfort in Laux’s voice during her presentation inside the University Student Union hall.
Laux shared verses from her fourth book of poems, “Facts About the Moon,” and a collection of new poems from her forthcoming release, “The 20th Bather.”
Laux’s oration was as warm a welcome as a cup of chamomile tea as students and faculty alike sat under the stiff coolness breezing from the air conditioner.
“Shaking the dust from her hair, especially when they fight, and when they sing,” Laux said as she read from her poem “Death Comes To Me Again, A Girl.”
Laux’s poems are mentioned as poems that give perspective or a deep appreciation for life’s organic aspects that society usually takes for granted.
“Personally, it’s depressing,” Laux explained. “I mean, why won’t we let people live their lives how they want to? Why are we doing this to ourselves?”
“I wouldn’t call Laux’s poems depressing. Depressing is one who gives up hope, but her poetry is different (how) she celebrates life,” said professor of poetics and creative writing Charles Webb.
“I always have this voice inside me reminding me that I am loved and I am wanted,” Laux added.
Seyburn described Laux’s poetry by using a quote by Robert Frost: “A poem starts in delight and ends in wisdom.”
Laux has this quality in her poetry, along with the talent to “land and move from subject to perception to observation,” Seyburn noted at the reading.
“Laux’s poetry is realistic, interesting, and with always a stunning metaphorical ending,” Webb said. “She’s one of the best poets in the country.”
