Reviews
''Without sacrificing clarity or narrative control, Doty's poetry interrogates the possibilities of language as a medium to make sense of the complexities of millennial America while its richness forestalls the potential fin de siecle angst... These poems do not flinch from their gaze at the uglinesses of contemporary life ... but the prevailing emotion is, surprisingly, joy... Astonishing, beautiful work.'' -- Sarah Kennedy, Shenandoah Critical acclaim for Mark Doty: ''If it were mine to invent the poet to complete the century of William Carlos Williams and Wallace Stevens, I would create Mark Doty just as he is, a maker of big, risky, fearless poems in which ordinary human experience becomes music.'' -- Philip Levine ''This masterful poet writes elegies so full of life we find our hopes restored. Moving, splendidly observant and unflinching, Mark Doty's poems extend the range of the American lyric poem.'' -- American Academy of Arts and Letters ''If photography strips off a layer of the soul, Doty's poetic vision restores it. His poems are suspensions of time held in language... Doty interrogates the world with his awe, and that world delivers up to him devotions, ghosts, moments of extraordinary beauty.'' -- Alexander Chee, San Francisco Review of Books ''I hope that readers, and not just readers of poetry, will add these poems to their private anthology of consciousness at the end of the century.'' -- Eugene Genovese, Boston Review ''Infusing the American lyric poem with symphonies of sound, Doty stretches elegies that go beyond merely encompassing broad landscapes. His canvasses are broad and deep, yet ultimately uplifting.'' -- Aria Seligmann, Eugene Weekly
