Dorianne Laux to Visit as Ninth Westminster Poet

Poet Dorianne Laux will visit Westminster School during the week of April 21 as the ninth Westminster Poet. Widely respected for her willingness to face the hard facts of life honestly, for her ability to transform ordinary moments of human life into extraordinary moments of self-discovery and revelation, and for her deft command of the craft of poetry, Laux will give a reading to the entire school community on Wednesday evening (April 22) and then visit with English classes during the first four blocks on Thursday morning (April 23).

Laux is the author of four acclaimed books of poems. Her latest, “Facts About the Moon,” was published by W. W. Norton and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the recipient of the Oregon Book Award, and short-listed for the 2006 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize. Sixth formers studied this book in the period between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Laux’s first book, “Awake” (1990), was introduced by Philip Levine, and announced the presence of a major new voice in American poetry. Third formers have been studying this book during the first few weeks of the spring term. Fifth formers have been reading “What We Carry” (1994), Laux’s second book of poems, while fourth formers have been studying her powerful collection of poems entitled “Smoke” (2000).

Laux has received two Best American Poetry Prizes, a Best American Erotic Poems Prize, a Pushcart Prize, two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Her work has appeared in the “Best of the American Poetry Review” and the “Norton Anthology of Contemporary Poetry.” She also is a frequent contributor to magazines as varied as The New York Quarterly, Orio, and Ms. Magazine. Garrison Keillor has featured her work on his program The Writers Almanac.

Laux and her husband, poet Joseph Millar, live in Raleigh, N.C., where she serves on the faculty at North Carolina State University as a poet-in-residence.  Previously, she has taught creative writing at the University of Oregon in Eugene, and still is associated with Pacific University’s Low Residency M.F.A. Program.