Incendiary Lit

A finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, Dorianne Laux’s fourth book of poems, Facts about the Moon (W.W. Norton), is the recipient of the Oregon Book Award, chosen by Ai. It was also short-listed for the 2006 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize for the most outstanding book of poems published in the United States in the previous year and chosen by the Kansas City Star as one of the ten best books of poetry published in 2005. Laux is also author of three collections of poetry from BOA Editions, Awake (1990) introduced by Philip Levine, reprinted this year by Eastern Washington University Press, What We Carry (1994) and Smoke (2000). Red Dragonfly Press will release Superman: The Chapbook, later this year. Co-author of The Poet’s Companion, she’s the recipient of two Best American Poetry Prizes, a Best American Erotic Poems Prize, a Pushcart Prize, two fellowships from The National Endowment for the Arts and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Her work has appeared in the Best of the American Poetry Review, The Norton Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, and she’s a frequent contributor to Orion and Ms. Magazine. Laux has waited tables and written poems in San Diego, Los Angeles, Berkeley, Petaluma, California and Juneau, Alaska. In 1994 she moved to Eugene where she’s now a Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Oregon. She lives with her husband, the poet Joseph Millar.

Dorianne Laux’s poems Dust and Sunday Radio, and Joseph Millar’s Love Pirates and Telephone Repairman are set to music by singer Paula Sinclair on her new album Uncle Tumbleweed.

Zebulon Huset: What was the last book or poem you’ve read that you absolutely loved?
Dorianne Laux:The last book I read that I loved was the Wild Trees by Richard Preston.
The last poem I read that I loved was Beetle Orgy by Benjamin Grossberg.

ZH: Are there any writers you just don’t get the attraction to?
DL: Yeah, some, though I don’t like to say as I may read them tomorrow and
suddenly get them. I didn’t get Dickinson for a long time, then one day
I read “There is a pain– so utter– it swallows substance up–” I got that.

ZH: What is your position on the semi-colon?
DL: Well, the late Kurt Vonnegut has said that semi-colons are “transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you’ve been to college.” I’m not fond of them, especially in poetry. I think they look messy to me. I enjoy the simplicity and clarity of the comma and the period.

ZH: What is your favorite two-word color?
DL: I have a soft spot in my child’s heart for Crayola Inc’s burnt sienna. I read somewhere that the Japanese don’t have a specific word for brown and so use more descriptive names such as “tea-color,” “fox-color,” and “fallen-leaf.” In Sri Lankan, brown would be husked-coconut-color, bed-tea-color, water-buffalo-color, cinnamon-bark-color. I like those, too. I also like shit-brown, rust-brown, tobacco-brown, Fallen-down-been-around-for-a-long-time-redwood-fence-brown and peanut-butter-brown. Any brown in a shit storm works for me.

ZH: Do you have any guilty pleasure movies?
DL: For a poet, all movies are guilty pleasure movies. I can often get off on a Lifetime
made for TV movie, though I just heard The Channel for Women is going to change
over to a channel for men and young boys. There goes that guilty pleasure.

ZH: If you were stranded on a desert island with three books, what would they be?
DL: Shakespeare, Sappho, and How to Build an Elastic Raft with your Underpants.

ZH: Is there any particular popular songs that just irk you for some reason?
DL: Oops I’ve Done It Again? I assume that’s the title. I love Metaphors by Sparks.

ZH: Do you have a favorite presidential candidate for ‘08?
DL: Not yet. I like saying Obamarama.

ZH: If they made a movie of any period of your life, who would you want to portray you?
DL: Tom Waits. And if they couldn’t get him, Cher. Seriously? Lili Taylor.

ZH: What is the best title you’ve ever come across (the actual work notwithstanding)
DL: Another Bullshit Night in Suck City by Nick Flynn.

Links for tons of more about and by Dorianne Laux

To hear Dorianne Laux read poems at Kelly Writers House go to PennSound (After Twelve Days of Rain; Stairway to Heaven; Firestarter; Life is Beautiful; Vacation Sex; Orgasms and Organisms; Pearl; Smoke; The Crossing; How it will Happen, When; Death Comes to me Again: A Girl)

The Pedestal Magazine (Dark Charms)
The Oregon Literary Review (Second Chances)
Web del Sol (How it will Happen, When)
Poetry Magazine (Fear; How it will Happen, When; Abschied Symphony; Last Words)
Mipoesias (Father of Minutes, Father of Days)
NEA Writer’s Corner (Smoke)
Poet’s Against the War (Cello
Poetry Foundation (The Shopfitter’s Wife)
Orion Magazine (Juneau Spring)
Verse Daily (Starling)
Geocities (China)
Caffeine Destiny (When Can We Leave?)
Beatrice (Moon in the Window)
Ward6Review (Incident with a Kiwi)
Pacific Magazine (The Life of Trees)

Interviews: Southern Hum
The Smoking Poet
The Monstserrat Review

Reviews:
Writing Blind (Awake)
San Diego Union-Tribune (Facts about the Moon)
CurledUp.com
Siren (Ms. Laux’s Best of 2006 picks)

Posted: Wednesday, September 19th, 2007 at 1:32 pm
Category: Writers, Poets.