Fire to Fire: New and Selected Poems

By Mark Doty

Book Overview

"Fire to Fire should solidify Doty's position as a star of contemporary American poetry. . . . The poems combine close attention to the fragile, contingent things of the world with the constant, almost unavoidable chance of transcendence." -- Publishers Weekly

A landmark collection of new and published works by one of our finest poets that is a testament to the clarity and thoughtful lyricism of his poems

Fire to Fire collects the best works from seven books of poetry by Mark Doty, acclaimed poet and New York Times bestselling author of two memoirs, Firebird and Dog Years.

Doty's subjects--our mortal situation, the evanescent beauty of the world, desire's transformative power, and art's ability to give shape to human lives--echo and develop across twenty years of poems. His signature style encompasses both the plainspoken and the artfully wrought; here one of contemporary American poetry's most lauded, recognizable voices speaks to the crises and possibilities of our times.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060752475
• ISBN13: 9780060752477
• Release Date: March 2008
• Publisher: Harper
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 1.38 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.1" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

The Fire Burns A Tragic Beauty in Doty's Latest Collection

Mark Doty's Fire To Fire is a carefully crafted presentation, a gallery of artistic finesse, showing Doty's solidity and influence in contemporary American poetry. This collection of poetry contains selections from each of his previous seven books of poetry with his newest poetry leading off the book. Contrary to the typical organization of poetry collections, Doty's Fire to Fire begins with fresh material so both old and new readers can engage with the writer Doty is today before they trace his development as a poet. The collection then continues with a chronological selection from each book beginning with Turtle, Swan and ending with School of the Arts. Doty's narrative style and his love of art, coupled with a dedication to craft and uncanny ability to extract beauty from urban decay makes for poetry that is not only easy to read but also poetry that resonates with a universal quest for meaning and truth in life. His connection with Modernism and the influence of Walt Whitman, Wallace Stevens, and William Carlos Williams, is evident but decidedly more apparent in earlier works such as "Homo Will not Inherit" (one of my personal favorites) and "Atlantis." In his newer works the Modernists become a ghostly residue, apparitions that show up as characters in his poems, still filtering through their influence but no longer the main style represented. For example, in "Apparition" the subject of the poem is an encounter the speaker has with the ghost of Walt Whitman. Doty is growing, focusing more on philosophical ruminations than narrative that centers on a concrete topic. The growth is evident on the series of poems describing his various contemplations on beauty, marriage, the soul, the sublime, etc. Poems such as "Apparition (favorite poem)" and "Theory of Narrative" also imply that Doty is going through a sort of reflective time during which he is also marinating his thoughts on writing and art. Although a couple of the other reviews on this page indicate that Doty's newer works are not as strong as his previous collections, I believe are a demonstration of his growth and poetic development and are essential to his remaining a dynamic artist. When people come to know an artist they automatically prejudice the works that the artist or writer was producing at the time. I urge you to not get stuck in the nostalgia of his early poetry and do not let his prior work prejudice you to his new poetry. Suspend your criticism and enjoy the writer Doty has become.

Mark Doty is Great

Mark Doty is a wonderful contemporary poet and wortwhile in libraries of all poetry fans John

BURNING BRIGHT

Mark Doty is one of our most courageous and important cultural voices, both because of his unflinching subject matter and the ground he occupies in the aesthetic debates of late modernism. This volume of New and Selected poems justly deserves the National Book Award it has recently received. It's important to note that "Turtle, Swan", his wonderful first volume, sadly underrepresented here by only two poems, came out just when public awareness of the AIDS crisis was hitting a crescendo (1987). In many respects, Doty occupies the same position in the poetry of that era that his near contemporary David Wojnarowicz (1954-1992) does in the visual arts. Doty's elegies to lost friends and lovers, his straightforward depiction of city life in the 1980s and 1990s, and his lyrical infusion of homoeroticism into almost all of his poems, whatever their ostensible subject, reached an early apotheosis in his third book "My Alexandria" (1993). Both "Atlantis" (1995) and "Sweet Machine" (1998) continued in this ecstatic, powerful, life-affirming mode, the poems employing clear narrative, sharp diction, and strict attention to sound and natural details. Doty is dog-crazy, art-mad and besotted with flowers. His ekphrastic poems are among his best because he always takes the radiant side of beauty in any aesthetic debate. In the books of the current decade, the new work becomes somewhat more opaque, more self-consciously experimental, more dependent on the closing line or a starkly stated theme for impact. Still, even the last decade has work that bears comparison with his best. Among the latter, you will never forget your first encounter with "Night Ferry", "No", "A Green Crab's Shell", the first section of "Atlantis", "Crepe de Chine", or "White Kimono". There are dozens of others that bear re-reading and, if you are a writer, close study: Doty's technical brilliance is so understated it feels like close-up magic.

An embarrassment of riches

This book was my introduction to Mark Doty, and it did not disappoint. His language is rich, dense, almost overwhelming sometimes. A poet myself, I find myself becoming jealous of his descriptions, so original and perfect are they. For example, in his poem "Theory of beauty (Grackles on Montrose)" his descriptions of the sounds the birds make include "drop the tin can", "really creaky hinge," and "limping siren." Not to mention "tea kettle in hell." Wonderful! If you get this book and like it, let me also recommend "The Water Sonnets" by Kenton Wing Robinson. They are tighter and more economical poems but vividly descriptive.

A quintessential poetry experience.......a must have for any serious reader or writer of contemporar

Mark Doty is one poet who continually astonishes me. I read his work and am always swept up in his lush vocabulary, the musicality of his language, the richness of details in the images he creates of the natural world. Suddenly, I realize, usually with an audible gasp, that he has taken me somewhere unexpected; he led me gently somewhere I can make meaning in a much more personal context. One way he does this, I believe, is by giving the reader emotional distance by using metaphors so deftly and so subtly. The reader finds beauty even in the darkest places. Doty is the poet who led me to poetry, and I do believe that "Fire to Fire" is the book I'd take to the proverbial "desert island" with me. I've reread his paperback titles so many times that they are nearly disintegrating. After reading "Pipistrelle," "The Green Crab's Shell," "The Source," and so many other new and old favorites all beautifully bound in this hard cover volume, I do believe I'm doing triple lutzes! I'm off the ground! This book is a must-have for anyone who reads, collects, and studies contemporary American poetry.