Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Dorianne Laux’s "Lake Havasu" melds personal reflection with a layered exploration of a human-engineered environment. The poem is steeped in heat, memory, and the awareness of how human ambition and natural forces intertwine, often with unintended consequences. Laux’s rich imagery and evocative tone invite readers into a space where beauty, artifice, and unease converge.

The poem begins with a stark, almost surreal description of the lake: "Man-made, bejesus hot, patches of sand turned to glass." These opening lines establish the artificiality of Lake Havasu, juxtaposing the intense desert heat with the transformative force of human intervention. The lake, a product of engineering and ambition, becomes a symbol of humanity’s audacity, underscored by the reference to London Bridge, "disassembled, shipped, reassembled." This dislocation of history—a bridge uprooted from its original context and transplanted to a fabricated landscape—sets the stage for the poem’s interrogation of artificiality and authenticity.

Laux weaves the natural and unnatural together, blending the Mojave heritage of the lake’s name ("Havasu. Havasu.") with the ecological disruptions caused by human activity. The stocked and restocked fish—"striped bass, carp, catfish, crappie, razorback turtles"—highlight the imposed order on the ecosystem, turning the lake into a manufactured cauldron of life. Yet, even amid this controlled environment, wildness and mystery persist: "Fifty year-old monsters, maybe twenty feet long," sturgeon that elude capture and embody the unknowable depths.

The poem shifts into a more personal and sensual register as Laux recalls her own youthful presence in the lake. "I stood waist deep / in that dammed blue, and I was beautiful," she writes, evoking a carefree moment of physical confidence and immersion in the water. This image of youthful vitality, "white bikini-ed shark flashing my blind side," contrasts sharply with the broader unease hinted at in the poem. The lake, both a site of pleasure and a locus of human disruption, mirrors the complexity of the speaker’s reflections.

A darker tone emerges with the account of the woman who died, "face down in the sand, / drunk on a 125 degree day." This image of fatal excess underscores the brutal reality of the environment. It intrudes upon the speaker’s earlier idyll, introducing mortality into a space that had seemed timeless and vibrant. The woman’s death becomes a haunting presence, an unsettling reminder of vulnerability and the potential cost of human indulgence.

The poem’s final stanzas weave together personal intimacy and broader historical context. The speaker and her companion attempt to escape the oppressive heat with makeshift comforts: "We sucked the cubes round, slid / the beveled edges down our thighs and spines." This sensory, almost tender scene contrasts with the ominous backdrop of the television news: Tylenol poisonings, the Vietnam Memorial, the debut of artificial hearts. These events, emblematic of human suffering and technological innovation, underscore a growing awareness of the fragility and complexity of the world.

The poem closes with a quiet but potent admission: "just beginning / to wonder if something might be wrong." This understated line encapsulates the poem’s central tension—the unease that lurks beneath the surface of both personal memory and collective experience. The speaker’s reflection moves from the intimate to the existential, from the tactile immediacy of her youth to a broader awareness of humanity’s impact on the world and the inherent precariousness of life.

"Lake Havasu" is a masterful meditation on the intersection of the personal and the ecological, the sensual and the historical. Laux’s vivid imagery and fluid narrative structure create a layered exploration of place, memory, and the human condition. The poem invites readers to consider the complexities of their own lives, their interactions with the world around them, and the delicate balance between creation and destruction, beauty and consequence.

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