So now, Doty has a new book of poetry out: Source.
And it's hard to review. It's brilliant. But it mines the same vein of imagery and emotion - the weight of adult life stilled by the quick gasp one gives when confronted by beauty - and while I'm glad to own it and recommend it, the shock of discovery is missing.
Then again, it's a brilliant book.
When I was in grad school, I always had trouble grading. How did you grade casual brilliance as opposed to grinding effort?
Somehow, because of Mark Doty, I have been expecting poetry to change my life, and maybe it has, just a little, as I look in new ways at the sunlit buildings above me or the dead leaves below. Maybe I'm loading him with too much of my desire for transcendence, and maybe he's just a damn good poet.
I'll leave you with a brief snipped from the new book (it's from the poem excerpted on Amazon, so I'm not giving his work away...).
A little rabbit dead in the grass
All that was quick
Soul of dart and hurry
No soul now,
And still the body
- not even the length
of my hand -
seems poised
for springing, legs
jutting forward
and back as if
in mid-leap...
And here comes
The So? of poetry;
Just one bunny dead
Of mysterious causes,
...
Buy the damn book. Buy all the poetry you can find; it is the soul's beautiful armor.
Article comments