“Bruce Laxalt writes a poetry of distinction and power. The places found in these poems are various: an island in the Caribbean, a courtroom in Reno, a morgue, a mine shaft, a bar near Stanford, a doctor's office, a deposition room, a restaurant on the Pacific coast. Yet these places have one thing in common:  the experience of the poet, given form, so to make for us his rare gifts. Some of the poems here remind one of classic flamenco: it's when death and pain, in the forge of language, are used as the raw materials of beauty.”

“Some poetry gives pleasure, as when we admire a pretty ornament. These poems are better than that: "they are the poems of a man who knows his calling, and has done crucial work. He has looked at his life and death, looked them in the face, and then come straight to us and told the truth.”

—Steven Nightingale, poet and novelist

“Haunted by what little time is given to live the one purposeful life, Bruce Laxalt has written a narrative that longs to be freed from mortal time, and it becomes a further shore upon which we may lay our eyes in contemplation. Beautiful and stubborn in their exterior, these poems of anguish and reflection imagine each moment without the yoke of the sundial.”

—Shaun Griffin, poet

Songs of Mourning and Worship

Poems by Bruce Laxalt

The smoke and burnt souls of juniper pines and fawns/ Are in the eastern valley with us tonight.

So begins the first and title poem in this collection, Songs of Mourning and Worship, describing the tragedy of a forest fire that has struck the Sierras.

The storm is coming ashore now/ The horizon's moved closer, grown vaguer/ ... My legs are trembling today. The island needs the rain.

So begins the third verse of Diagnosis of Exclusion, describing an impending diagnosis of ALS.

Eager eyes and sun-tinged hair, a soap-sudded grin from the porcelain tub/ The only photo we could find to show the jury/ Of the work of art you were, and would have become.

So reads Work in Progress, recounting the physical abuse and murder of a child.

The cisterns are all overflowing again/ The sky having given back purified the water it had taken from the sea.

So ends Christmas Letter, the final poem in this collection, signaling hopefulness.

These are poems of honesty and vision. They speak of the realities of existence, realities that are hard, tough, shocking in some instances, and yet through which can be gleaned beauty.

2005, 60 pages
1-891033-30-1
Cloth, $18.00

BRUCE LAXALT was born and raised in Reno, Nevada, living two years as a child in southern France. He attended Stanford University, obtaining a degree in philosophy in 1973 and studying creative writing under Albert J. Guerard. After graduating from Stanford Law School in 1976, he worked as a lawyer with the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., for a year. He returned to Nevada, where he has practiced law since, first as a homicide prosecutor, and later as a civil litigator. He formed the statewide law firm of Laxalt and Nomura, and is listed in Best Lawyers In America as well as in Chambers U.S.A., America's Leading Business Lawyers. In 2001, he was diagnosed with ALS. The diagnosis was questioned for several years, but ultimately confirmed. He continues to practice law both from his office in Nevada and his home in the Caribbean.