I try to avoid calling myself a poet because I think that's something someone else has to call you. It's like bragging. — Dorianne Laux Copy Share Image
There's no word for what Young does, only for what he accomplishes-the capturing of small, daily miracles. — Dorianne Laux Copy Share Image
We continue to speak, if only in whispers, to something inside us that longs to be named. — Dorianne Laux Copy Share Image
“… They are savage for knowledge, for beauty and truth. They crawl on their knees to find it.” — Dorianne Laux Beauty Copy Share Image
A poem is like a child; at some point we have to let it go and trust that it will make its… — Dorianne Laux Child Copy Share Image
That's how it is sometimes--God comes to your window, all bright light and black wings, and you're just too tired to open… — Dorianne Laux Copy Share Image
“How many losses does it take to stop a heart, to lay waste to the vocabularies of desire?” — Dorianne Laux Death Copy Share Image
I also have my backpack of the tried-and-true, and because it is new to [my students], it becomes fresh to me again… — Dorianne Laux Copy Share Image
Someone spoke to me last night, told me the truth. Just a few words, but I recognized it. I knew I should… — Dorianne Laux Copy Share Image
I share my life experiences as a poet with my students. My poetic difficulties, joys, struggles and discoveries. If I read a… — Dorianne Laux Book Copy Share Image
I love people and psychology. As a writer, I’m not so interested in Fred getting from the living room to the car.… — Dorianne Laux Copy Share Image
“And oh, the oh my nape of the neck. The up-swept oh my nape of the neck. I could walk behind anyone… — Dorianne Laux Fall in love Copy Share Image
“To write without any awareness of a tradition you are trying to become a part of would be self-defeating. Every artist alive… — Dorianne Laux Art Copy Share Image
The reason I started writing was because I was a little kid in San Diego who was getting beaten up by her… — Dorianne Laux Copy Share Image
Who you are contributes to your poetry in a number of important ways, but you shouldn't identify with your poems so closely… — Dorianne Laux Copy Share Image
I don't know if we ever have enough distance to "see" our own trajectory. We're in the muddled middle of it. Who… — Dorianne Laux Copy Share Image
I write to invite the voices in, to watch the angel wrestle, to feel the devil gather on its haunches and rise.… — Dorianne Laux Angel Copy Share Image
We with my husband [Joseph Millar] are often the first reader for one another's work, and we often also have the last… — Dorianne Laux Books Copy Share Image
Poetry is an intimate act. It's about bringing forth something that's inside you--whether it is a memory, a philosophical idea, a deep… — Dorianne Laux Apprehension Copy Share Image
Moon In the Window I wish I could say I was the kind of child who watched the moon from her window,… — Dorianne Laux Copy Share Image
How not to imagine the tumors ripening beneath his skin, flesh I have kissed, stroked with my fingertips, pressed my belly and… — Dorianne Laux Copy Share Image
I don’t worry anymore about writing. There are times that I go through dry periods. I never go through a block. I’m… — Dorianne Laux Art Copy Share Image
I think what life experience has brought to my poems is compassion. When you work hard to make a living, raise a… — Dorianne Laux Children Copy Share Image
Someone spoke to me last night,/ told me the truth. Just a few words,. but I recognized it./ I knew I should… — Dorianne Laux Copy Share Image
“You've walked those streets a thousand times and still you end up here. Regret none of it, not one of the wasted… — Dorianne Laux Carnival Copy Share Image
“The slate black sky. The middle step of the back porch. And long ago my mother's necklace, the beads rolling north and… — Dorianne Laux Copy Share Image
I'm not the only person in the world who is suffering. I'm trying to talk to the world, responding to those voices. — Dorianne Laux Copy Share Image
Tinted Distances is a tender meditation that reveals a careful eye and steady devotion to elegy and ode. — Dorianne Laux Copy Share Image
Every good poem asks a question, and every good poet asks every question. — Dorianne Laux Poet Copy Share Image
I would say my life experiences are my poetry, whether I'm writing about those actual, factual experiences or not. — Dorianne Laux Copy Share Image
Every poem I write falls short in some important way. But I go on trying to write the one that won’t. — Dorianne Laux Copy Share Image
Good writing works from a simple premise: your experience is not yours alone, but in some sense a metaphor for everyone's. — Dorianne Laux Good writing Copy Share Image
There is so much about the process of writing that is mysterious to me, but this one thing I've found to be… — Dorianne Laux Copy Share Image
Joseph [Millar] is much more disciplined than I am. He's up every morning meditating, then he writes, and he reads throughout the… — Dorianne Laux Book Copy Share Image
W.S Merwin says "after three days of rain" and I write "After Twelve Days of Rain." I like his quietude. I admire… — Dorianne Laux Ability Copy Share Image