Smoke

Dorianne Laux

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.