Awake, Dorianne Laux’s first book of poetry, is introduced by Pulitzer Prize winner and U.S. Poet Laureate Philip Levine for a reason: It’s a near-perfect, emotionally haunting book—one which follows a narrative trajectory that touches upon the speaker’s ability to endure the cruelties of parental abuse, and maturation into womanhood, alongside the joy’s of noticing everyday details and using the imagination and a fearless poetic voice to confront—if not escape—suffering’s violent hand.