Poet and teacher: As a winner of the Paterson Poetry prize, Oregon Book Award, and Pulitzer Prize finalist, Dorianne Laux brings her literary wisdom and keen observation to her work with poets in the MFA in Creative Writing Program as a visiting writer. / Photo courtesy Dorianne Laux
Writer at Work: Dorianne Laux on Longlists, ‘Life on Earth’, and the Poetry of the Everyday
Her latest collection made the longlist for the 2024 National Book Award in Poetry. A visiting professor for Saint Mary’s MFA in Creative Writing, Laux sat down to discuss that nomination, the writing life, and her love of teaching.
“At Work” is a series that highlights Saint Mary’s faculty and staff at work in the world. Artists, writers, scholars, scientists—we sit down and dive deep into their latest projects.
As a poet and a person, Dorianne Laux has long cared about the little things. Her most recent collection, Life on Earth, treats the quotidian with keen observation, turning everyday objects—be they Bisquick, crows, or a can of WD-40—into symbols of cosmic importance. It’s this attentiveness that earned her collection a coveted spot on the longlist for the 2024 National Book Award in Poetry. “[Life on Earth] invites us to consider that even the most ordinary aspects of our messy humanity can be worthy of poetry,” said the National Book Awards announcement in September.
The author of six poetry collections and two craft books, Laux is also a 2024–25 Visiting Writer for Saint Mary’s MFA in Creative Writing Program. While Life on Earth did not make the shortlist, Laux certainly has received plenty of recognition over her decades-long career. Her awards include the Paterson Poetry Prize and the Oregon Book Award, and she has been a finalist for the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize, the National Book Critic’s Circle Award, and the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.
Laux kicked off this semester’s Visiting Writers Series in September with an afternoon reading, sharing selected poems from Life on Earth and elsewhere. Written during the heart of the COVID-19 pandemic, the collection carries clear influences from that time while also dipping into personal history, including her Acadian ancestry, as well as her relationship with her mother and late brother. In the title poem, “Life on Earth,” she marvels at the sheer chance of our existence:
When you think you might be
through with this body and soul, look down
at an anthill or up at the stars, remember
your gambler chances, the bounty
of good luck you born for.
Laux and her husband, the poet Joseph Millar, recently moved back to the Bay Area after spending many years teaching and living in Eugene, Oregon, and Raleigh, North Carolina, where she taught in North Carolina State University’s MFA program until 2022. I had a chance to sit down with Laux in October, not long after she was selected for the National Book Award longlist, and we had the opportunity to talk about her writing life.
“It really doesn’t matter if you’re imitating because if it’s you writing it, you’re going to have a new perspective. A different kind of language, different images, and then it’s going to become your poem.”
You’ve taught poetry at several schools and programs. What draws you to teaching?
Well, I like to teach, and I love seeing young poets—although we have a couple of older poets this year, so I love seeing old poets, too. It’s a way for me to build community in the Bay Area. Before, it was community in North Carolina, and before that, in Oregon. My husband and I teach at Pacific University’s low residency MFA, too. That builds this whole other community from all over and outside of the United States. So, I love that.
I also love teaching itself. It pays—not hugely well—but enough. And I’m retired now, so it’s my way to give back. Because of course, I had many teachers in my life. Not just poetry teachers, but teachers who really helped me. I want to give that back.
What brought you to SMC?
Chris Arnold, the MFA Program Director, called me and asked if I’d like to come teach. We knew of each other before and had met once or twice; the same with Matthew Zapruder—one of the core Poetry faculty. The writing world is a small community, so we all know each other on one level or another.
Can you tell me a bit about Life on Earth? Where did the impulse for this collection come from?
It was written during the pandemic. And so, as I like to say, knowing how many deaths and illnesses were suffered, the pandemic was very good to me because I ended up writing a book. And I wrote another textbook, Finger Exercises for Poets.
I had two regular weekly workshops with poets we knew from North Carolina and Oregon, for a while, on Mondays and Sundays. We would meet every Monday and Sunday and write a poem. By the end of the pandemic, I had almost enough poems for a book.
There was no rhyme or reason for these particular poems being together, and there are only a couple of pandemic poems in Life on Earth. It’s just whatever happened to catch my fancy that day.
What does the longlist nomination mean to you?
It was quite an honor and a surprise. Just like the Pulitzer nomination I received in 2020 was a complete surprise. They don’t call you first. You have no idea until one of your students calls you or texts you some weird text you don’t understand because you have no idea what they’re talking about.
It was the same with the longlist. I went on my Facebook page and it was blowing up, blowing up all over. But then, of course, I was not notified when they dropped me from the shortlist. Although when the poet Mary Ruefle was the second Pulitzer finalist in 2020, she said that it’s a humane way to do it, because then you’re not sitting around waiting. So it just happens and it’s already a done deal. It was a done deal with the Pulitzer and with the National Book Award.
I didn’t have the National Book Award, so I didn’t lose it. And I still get a sticker. Give me that and I’m perfectly happy.
What’s the top piece of advice you give your poetry students?
Read and write. My students are reading Finger Exercises for Poets right now, so every week they read a short little essay from it and choose from a bunch of writing prompts. I encourage poets to write. Unless you’re writing, you’re not a poet; you’re just an ordinary person walking around in the world. Plus, it gives them poems that they might be able to bring to class and have workshopped, to see if they can make them better, into a final draft of a poem.
You’ve got to read a lot of poetry to learn what you love, and what kinds of things you are less attracted to, and to get ideas and subjects. Then try your hand at writing. And imitate your favorite poets, who have stood the test of time. Don’t be afraid of that because that’s what all the great artists do: they imitate the people who came before them because they’re so good, right?
What are your reading recommendations?
Well, I’m reading Matthew Zapruder’s latest book, I Love Hearing Your Dreams, right now. And the old favorites: Sharon Olds, Carolyn Forché, Pablo Neruda, Diane Seuss. And Kim Addonizio—who came to visit my class. Can’t go wrong with any of those poets. These are good ones to start with and they’re contemporary American poets.
Which poets do you imitate?
I imitated the hell out of Sharon Olds, Carolyn Forché, and Pablo Neruda. I tried to cram all three of them into every poem, but because I’m the one writing it, the poem is still new. It’s just like snowflakes and fingerprints. Nobody’s are the same. So it really doesn’t matter if you’re imitating because if it’s you writing it, you’re going to have a new perspective. A different kind of language, different images, and then it’s going to become your poem.
(This interview was condensed and edited for clarity)
Jordan Sapp MFA ’25 is a graduate editorial fellow with the Office of Marketing & Communications at Saint Mary’s. Write her.
