Dorianne Laux, “Moon in the Window”

I wish I could say I was the kind of child
who watched the moon from her window,
would turn toward it and wonder.
I never wondered. I read. Dark signs
that crawled toward the edge of the page.
It took me years to grow a heart
from paper and glue. All I had
was a flashlight, bright as the moon,
a white hole blazing beneath the sheets.

From Facts About the Moon. Laux is also the co-author, with Kim Addonizio, of The Poet’s Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry. On the subject of inspiration, Laux told an interviewer: “There is no one way to get into a poem. And that’s part of the excitement, that you never know what the trigger will be. And for me, much of the enjoyment of writing is the search for the exact word. I like moving through my day thinking about a line of poetry, searching for a word. Precision is as important to poets as it is to watchmakers or the builders of bridges. Each brick or board or steel rod needs to be perfect to hold the thing up.”

15 April 2007 | poetry |