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sms8493's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
4.0
robertlashley's review
5.0
The problem with poetry books about nature is that too often the author tends to superimpose a fixed set of ideas to the setting; along with fixed answers that they want the setting to give them. In Facts about the Moon, Dorianne Laux doesn’t escape this tendency as much as make you believe her ideas as much as you believe your own. In the background of the oregon woods, Laux find new ways to fuse her complex themes of class, sex, gender, love, and humanity into great poetry. In her best work she uses our common language in uncommon means; while fusing a lyrical style that dances around the rigid strictures of modern prose poetry and contempoary free verse. A first rate book
lgmaxwell722's review
3.0
I found there to be some gems in Facts About The Moon. Those poems that pull you in and leave you wanting more when they end. I loved how Laux uses various styles to draw the reader in. Her most powerful poems were those which saw daily events in intimate detail and exposed them on the page.
toniclark's review
5.0
This is a great collection. I can't get over how well she uses image, how image opens and opens and you become swept up in it, and suddenly see that you've been privy to an entire story that now, in a way, has become part of your own life. There's much sensuality, some humor, tremendous tenderness and joy.
The title poem is stunning, but there are so many other good ones, too.
Cello
When a dead tree falls in a forest
it often falls into the arms
of a living tree. The dead,
thus embraced, rasp in wind,
slowly carving a niche
in the living branch, sheering away
the rough outer flesh, revealing
the pinkish, yellowish, feverish
inner bark. For years
the dead tree rubs its fallen body
against the living, building
its dead music, making its raw mark,
wearing the tough bough down,
moaning in wind, the deep
rosined bow sound of the living
shouldering the dead.
The title poem is stunning, but there are so many other good ones, too.
Cello
When a dead tree falls in a forest
it often falls into the arms
of a living tree. The dead,
thus embraced, rasp in wind,
slowly carving a niche
in the living branch, sheering away
the rough outer flesh, revealing
the pinkish, yellowish, feverish
inner bark. For years
the dead tree rubs its fallen body
against the living, building
its dead music, making its raw mark,
wearing the tough bough down,
moaning in wind, the deep
rosined bow sound of the living
shouldering the dead.
katrinky's review
4.0
gorgeous. read it in an airport, one of the best places on the planet to read poetry. laux writes about: trees, sex, kissing, the moon, alaska, plants, skeletons, public transportation, daughters, sisters, dirt, cigarettes. she is the poet that woke me back up to poetry, and for that i am boundlessly grateful.
janedallaway's review
4.0
I’m still always taken aback by Dorianne Laux’s poetry. It has the ability to take me on a journey, to take me somewhere unexpected. I love that it’s straightforward. Or at least that I can read it that way. I don’t have to approach it like a cryptic crossword analysing every word and wondering what else it could mean.
In this volume, I put marks against the following poems:
- the life of trees
- my brother’s grave
- moon in the window
- facts about the moon
- her first
- afterlife
- cello
- the birthday party
In this volume, I put marks against the following poems:
- the life of trees
- my brother’s grave
- moon in the window
- facts about the moon
- her first
- afterlife
- cello
- the birthday party