Books
The Book of Men
August 2012 // Paperback // W.W. Norton
ISBN 978-0-393-34265-9, 5.6 × 8.3 in / 96 pages
“Dorianne Laux dares to parse her life through the prism of men who’ve passed through it.” —New York Times {find additional reviews below}
From the Publisher:
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.
Praise for The Book of Men
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 is] continually engaging and, at her best, luminous.
—San Diego Union-Tribune
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
Laux’s superb language and use of metaphor read as insightful and effortless.
—Time Out New York