Theories and Apparitions

Resumen del libro

In this, his eighth book of poetry, Mark Doty's subjects - our mortal situation, the evanescent beauty of the world, desire's transformative power and poetry's ability to give shape to human lives - echo and develop. The first poem, 'Pipistrelle', is a typically eloquent disquisition on the art of communication prompted by the flight of a bat - 'an inky signature too fast to trace' - and is followed by an extraordinary series of meditations and variations on this theme. The poet listens to cicadas, to Handel, to the calling of birds, to Juan the loquacious Mexican taxi driver; he steeps himself in the colour and incident of the streets and subways of New York City; he goes for a never-ending chi-gong massage and is visited by the shades of Berryman and Whitman.

As the images accumulate and cohere, guided by Doty's unique style - both plainspoken and sophisticated, both wry and profound - we arrive at a new understanding of the way we live and the world we live in. He shows us what we love and its magnificent fragility - that 'the house of beauty is a house of flames' - and we see, once again, why he is regarded as one of America's most recognisable and most significant poets.

Biografía del autor

Since the publication of his first volume of verse, Turtle, Swan, in 1987, Mark Doty has been recognized as one of the most accomplished poets in America. Hailed for his elegant, intelligent verse, Doty has often been compared to James Merrill, Walt Whitman and C.P. Cavafy. His syntactically complex and aesthetically profound free verse poems, odes to urban gay life, and quietly brutal elegies to his lover, Wally Roberts, have been hailed as some of the most original and arresting poetry written today. The recipient of numerous grants and fellowships, Doty has also won a number of prestigious literary awards, including the Whiting Writer's Award, the T. S. Eliot Prize, the National Poetry Series, the Los Angeles Times Book Award, the National Book Critics' Circle Award, the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for first nonfiction, and the National Book Award for Fire to Fire: New and Selected Poems (2008). A long-time resident of Provincetown, Massachusetts, Doty teaches at Rutgers University in New Jersey.