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 love for another person or for the world, or an apprehension of the spiritual. It's about making something, in language, which can be transmitted to others--not as information, or polemic, but as irreducible art.
Dorianne LauxJoseph [Millar] is much more disciplined than I am. He's up every morning meditating, then he writes, and he reads throughout the day. He probably reads ten books to my two and writes twice as much as I do.
Dorianne LauxWe all get habituated, right? You get up in the morning, have your coffee, and read your newspaper, and thatโs great. Everybody loves life in its mundane, daily aspects. Itโs what makes us feel secure. But I also start to go numb a little bit and I donโt see whatโs around me. So I put myself in a new situation and suddenly Iโm really seeing the person next to me, hearing music, and Iโm smelling, and I canโt help but want to write it down.
Dorianne LauxThere's no word for what Young does, only for what he accomplishes-the capturing of small, daily miracles.
Dorianne LauxDeath comes to me again, a girl in a cotton slip, barefoot, giggling. Itโs not so terrible she tells me, not like you think, all darkness and silence. There are windchimes and the smell of lemons, some days it rains, but more often the air is dry and sweet. I sit beneath the staircase built from hair and bone and listen to the voices of the living. I like it, she says, shaking the dust from her hair, especially when they fight, and when they sing.
Dorianne Laux