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    Fire to Fire: New and Selected Poems: A National Book Award Winner
    Unavailable
    Fire to Fire: New and Selected Poems: A National Book Award Winner
    Unavailable
    Fire to Fire: New and Selected Poems: A National Book Award Winner
    Ebook438 pages4 hours

    Fire to Fire: New and Selected Poems: A National Book Award Winner

    By Mark Doty

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    “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.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateOct 13, 2009
    ISBN9780061856631
    Unavailable
    Fire to Fire: New and Selected Poems: A National Book Award Winner
    Author

    Mark Doty

    Mark Doty's books of poetry and nonfiction prose have been honored with numerous distinctions, including the National Book Critics Circle Award, the PEN/Martha Albrand Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and, in the United Kingdom, the T. S. Eliot Prize. In 2008, he won the National Book Award for Fire to Fire: New and Selected Poems. He is a professor at the University of Houston, and he lives in New York City.

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    Reviews for Fire to Fire

    4/5

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    • 5/5
      A courageous and emotionally powerful collection, "Fire to Fire" exhibits Mark Doty's poetical range and aesthetic. He speaks with clarity of language and image, is not afraid to allow the natural world to speak for him, and faces death and life after the deaths of so many close to him with honesty and impossible hope:

      "All smolder and oxblood, these flowerheads, flames of August: fierce bronze, or murky rose, petals concluded in gold— And as if fire called its double down the paired goldfinches come swerving quick on the branching towers, so the blooms sway with the heft of hungers indistinguishable, now, from the blossoms."

      "Sometimes we wake not knowing how we came to lie here, or who has crowned us with these temporary, precious stones."

      He reveals the survivor's wonder and guilt when he survives when so many friends and a lover die in the great AIDS crisis:

      "And why did a god so invested in permanence choose so fragile a medium, the last material he might expect to last?"

      Doty is not afraid to come close to the sentimental when talking about Beau and Arden, his dogs, as they age through their briefer lives and die before he was ready.

      Every poems is crafted for this world. And while Doty acknowledges the great rift created by the 1970s Postmodern experimentation and loss of faith in language, he believes in the power of words well-chosen to carry us through our individual and collective search for meaning: He knows the surprise that comes when the poem reaches beyond what the poet thought he wanted:

      "The poem wants the impossible; the poem wants a name for the kind nothing at the core of time,"

      Read this collection. You will be heartbroken at times, but that is our lot. And Doty is a great voice and his gentle but courageous presence is welcome on this journey.

    • 3/5
      I found Doty's poems good, solid, but frequently lacking the fire I was looking for in them. I didn't feel compelled by a spark of emotion to progress in the book, and they were certainly well crafted, I just couldn't love them. Like a talented but otherwise dull and homely child.
    • 4/5
      Some nice new poems. Missing some of my favorites, though, like "Letter to Walt Whitman" and "An Island Sheaf: Key West". Most Selecteds fall short for me--I'd rather the integrity of the original collection.