All the pieces in this fourth collection of Dorianne Laux's poetry  reflect her life experience. In a recent conversation she said, "It's all autobiographical."

Dorianne Laux is an associate professor in the Creative Writing  Program at the University of Oregon. She also is a faculty member in Pacific University's MFA in Writing program.
"Facts About the Moon" was the winner of the 2006 Oregon Book Award. The title poem, "Facts about the Moon," begins humorously: "The moon is backing away from us / an inch and a half each year... What's a person supposed to do?" The poem takes a serious turn to present misplaced loyalty, that of a mother to her murderer son. The theme of love is the focus in final lines that engage us because of their universality: "...you want / to slap her back to sanity... and you almost do / until she lifts her pale puffy face, her eyes / two craters, and then you can't help it / either, you know love when you see it, / you can feel its lunar strength, its brutal pull."

In "My Brother's Grave," Laux conveys emotion indirectly, through vivid imagery -- in her "pulling up / weeds from the roadside,... / tough, stringy stems / I had to chew off with my teeth, / the pitiful blossoms sodden, barely there" -- and directly, in the final lines: "How could I have imagined then / how alone I would become."

The lyrical "Morning Song" evokes physical sensations as well as emotions. The narrator takes her "first swallow" of coffee, tastes "... the sharp, nearly painful heat / ...the liquid / unraveling down the raw tunnel of my throat." She experiences her body "fully, vessel of  desire, / my stomach a pond of want and warmth...." She hears each bird's song, "...and I know I am here, / in this widening light, as we all are, with them, / even the most damaged among us or lonely / or nearly dead, and ...for each of us there is / some small sound like an unseen bird... / that could wake us, and take us home."

"Tonight I Am in Love" demonstrates Laux's love of the rhythms and sounds of words. A tribute to all great poets, the piece ends in these affecting lines: "When I cannot see to read or walk alone /  along the slough, I will hear you, I will/ bring the longing in your  voices to rest / against my old, tired heart and call you back."