Book of the Week for June 8

B▫O▫W▫ book of the week
for June 8, 2009
Fire to Fire: new and selected poems, Mark Doty
PS 3554.0798 F57 2008/ 5th floor stacks

Some intricate craftsmanship from "A Green Crab's Shell":
this little traveling case
comes with such lavish lining!
Imagine breathing

surrounded by
the brilliant rinse
of summer's firmament
To me, Doty's poems are pasta shells: curved, delicate, the outside the careful and lavish description (of the natural world, of urban scenes) and the filling Doty's musings and insights.

From "Fog Suite":
how this fog-fired
green's intensified
by sunlight filtered

through the atmosphere's
wet linens--a green
you could almost drink!

later in the same poem:
What I love about language
is what I love about fog:
what comes between us and things
grants them their shine...

Winner of the 2008 National Book Award for Poetry, Fire To Fire collects poems from seven of Doty's books and includes more than a dozen new works.

Powells.com listing: included Publisher's Weekly review
Markdoty.org's audio page: interviews and readings, and including a video homage from poetfan.