The Book of Men: Poems

by Dorianne Laux

Overview

“Dorianne Laux dares to parse her life through the prism of men who’ve passed through it.” —New York Times

Dorianne Laux’s fifth collection of poetry peels back time to the summer of love and the Vietnam War. Her keen hindsight uncovers the humanity at the center of conflict with language that goes straight to the heart. This work stands as an elegy for the loss of innocence, an homage to the glimmer underneath the urban grunge, and a love song to the imperfections that unite and divide us. Laux possesses what Tony Hoagland calls “the brave art of looking,” with an immediate and compassionate touch.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393342659
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	08/06/2012
Pages:	96
Sales rank:	687,869
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.10(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

Dorianne Laux’s poetry collections include the Pulitzer Prize finalist Only as the Day Is Long and Life On Earth. She received the Paterson Poetry Prize and is a founding faculty member of Pacific University’s low-residency MFA program. She lives in Richmond, California.

Editorial Reviews

"[Laux is] continually engaging and, at her best, luminous."

San Diego Union-Tribune

"The Book of Men…makes us grateful once again for poetry's capacity for rescue."

B. H. Fairchild

"The poetry of Dorianne Laux is essential."

Nick Flynn

"Laux’s superb language and use of metaphor read as insightful and effortless."

Time Out New York

"Laux at her best. She’s witty, engaging, and candid…Echoes of Whitman are everywhere in The Book of Men. Both Whitman and Laux are profoundly democratic poets. Anyone can live in their poems, and their poems can live anywhere."

The Rumpus