Break

Contemporary American poetry includes poems written approximately from the mid-20th century through to the present day. The main features of the genre are born out of innovation, as poets purposefully deviate from the traditional rhyme schemes and metrical features used by their predecessors to create dynamic, typically free verse, works of writing (see: Literary Devices “Form and Meter”). Dorianne Laux is decidedly contemporary. She not only began publishing her work in the 1990s, but she also strays from tradition within the construction of her poems, favoring singular, multiple line stanzas, internal rhyme, and word play as opposed to the more structured stanza breaks and end rhymes used by past poets.

“Break” was published in Laux’s first collection of poetry, Awake, in 1990. The poem is, at its core, about Laux’s personal life (see: Literary Context “Authorial Context”). However, “Break” is also situated within the larger American cultural context, revealing how the outside world impacts an individual’s private life at home (see: Poem Analysis). Laux was living and writing about the United States during a complex historical moment: the invention of the internet came alongside the rise of global warming and terrorist attacks. Monica Lewinski was being slandered by the media while Bill Clinton remained untouched (Hampson, Rick. “How the Overshadowed ‘90s Shaped Our World.” USA Today, 29 June 2014). These social and political events directly speak to Laux’s personage, altering her descriptions of how she raises her daughter within “Break” due to the chaos of the wider world. Laux’s work adds unique perspective to this moment in time, interrogating larger social issues through the lens of the domestic and the quotidian.