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Only As the Day Is Long: New and Selected Poems
Only As the Day Is Long: New and Selected Poems | Dorianne Laux
8 posts | 3 read | 6 to read
A collection of new and selected works from a prize-winning poet known to bear compassionate and ruthless witness to the quotidian. Only as the Day Is Long represents a brilliant, daring body of work from one of our boldest contemporary poets, known to bear compassionate and ruthless witness to the quotidian. Drawn from Dorianne Lauxs five expansive volumes, including her confident debut Awake, National Book Critics Circle Finalist What We Carry, and Paterson Prizewinning The Book of Men, the poems in this collection have been "brought to the hard edge of meaning" (B. H. Fairchild) and praised for their "enormous precision and beauty" (Philip Levine). Twenty new odes pay homage to Lauxs mother, an ordinary and extraordinary woman of the Depression era. The wealth of her life experience finds expression in Lauxs earthy and lyrical depictions of working-class America, full of the dirt and mess of real life. From the opening poem, "Two Pictures of My Sister," to the last, "Letter to My Dead Mother," she writes, in her words, of "living gristle" with a perceptive frankness that is luminous in its specificity and universal in its appeal. Exploring experiences of survival and healing, of sexual love and celebration, Only as the Day Is Long shows Laux at the height of her powers.
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merelybookish
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Graywacke Painful and beautiful 4mo
TheSpineView Sad 😔😥 4mo
dabbe A whoah one. 🩵🩶🩵 4mo
28 likes3 comments
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GatheringBooks
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TheSpineView Love the message!❤️ 1y
30 likes1 comment
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GatheringBooks
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#NovemberNarrative Day 2: For some reason, this poem seems perfect for #SaintsDay - maybe God coming through one‘s window and us being too tired to open it. 😭

Eggs Love this 😢 1y
30 likes1 comment
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merelybookish
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TheSpineView Good one!💚 2y
33 likes1 comment
review
MegCaldwell
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Dorianne Laux is the kind of poet that writes so beautifully about tragic grief I feel as if I am finally being understood.

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TheSpineView
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Redwritinghood
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(TW: child sexual abuse) This anthology contains selections from her earlier books of poetry plus some new poems. The early poems dealing with the abuse she suffered as a child and her time in a mental institution are raw and show great vulnerability. The later poems reflect her growing maturity, but the emotions are more controlled/tamed. In the final poems mourning her mother‘s death, the child-like vulnerability comes through again. 4⭐️

TrishB Not read any of this poetry, stacked. 5y
Books88 I spy Color Street nails! 😍 5y
Redwritinghood @AJBowers Yes! I love them. 5y
Books88 💕🙌🏻💕 they look amazing! 5y
62 likes2 stack adds4 comments
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Thndrstd
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Pickpick

An anthology of poems from Laux's first four books, along with new poems. Her poems depict middle class life, the struggles of family with parents facing their own challenges, and the discovery of rock vocalists and other popular culture. A rich voice with raw expression, lyrical but grounded in real life. A magnificent overview of a major American poet. Highly recommended.