{"id":143700,"date":"2021-04-28T10:00:46","date_gmt":"2021-04-28T14:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.danverslibrary.org\/readthis\/?p=143700"},"modified":"2021-04-12T12:42:33","modified_gmt":"2021-04-12T16:42:33","slug":"michelle-recommends-fire-to-fire-mark-doty-national-poetry-month","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.danverslibrary.org\/readthis\/?p=143700","title":{"rendered":"Michelle Recommends: Fire to Fire – Mark Doty (National Poetry Month)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"“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<\/em><\/p>\n

Fire to Fire<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>collects the best works from seven books of poetry by Mark Doty, acclaimed poet and\u00a0New York Times<\/em>\u00a0bestselling author of two memoirs,\u00a0Firebird<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Dog Years.<\/em><\/p>\n

Doty\u2019s subjects\u2014our mortal situation, the evanescent beauty of the world, desire\u2019s transformative power, and art\u2019s ability to give shape to human lives\u2014echo and develop across twenty years of poems. His signature style encompasses both the plainspoken and the artfully wrought; here one of contemporary American poetry\u2019s most lauded, recognizable voices speaks to the crises and possibilities of our times.”<\/p>\n

\n

Last year I recommended Doty’s Still Life with Oysters and Lemon<\/em><\/a>, a book I continue to think about to this day, but would also add that I enjoyed his most recent release, What Is the Grass: Walt Whitman In My Life<\/em><\/a>, as well.<\/p>\n

\"\"“Effortlessly blending biography, criticism, and memoir, National Book Award\u2013winning poet and best-selling memoirist Mark Doty explores his personal quest for Walt Whitman.<\/em><\/p>\n

Mark Doty has always felt haunted by Walt Whitman\u2019s bold, perennially new American voice, and by his equally radical claims about body and soul and what it means to be a self. In\u00a0What Is the Grass<\/em>, Doty\u2015a poet, a New Yorker, and an American\u2015keeps company with Whitman and his\u00a0Leaves of Grass<\/em>, tracing the resonances between his own experience and the legendary poet\u2019s life and work.<\/p>\n

What is it then between us?<\/em>\u00a0Whitman asks. In search of an answer, Doty explores spaces\u2015both external and internal\u2015where he finds the poet\u2019s ghost. He meditates on desire, love, and the mysterious wellsprings of the poet\u2019s enduring work: a radical experience of transformation and enlightenment, queer sexuality, and an obsession with death, as well as unabashed love for a great city and for the fresh, rowdy character of American speech. In riveting close readings threaded with personal memoir and illuminated by awe, Doty reveals the power of Whitman\u2019s persistent presence in his life and in the American imagination at large.<\/p>\n

How does a voice survive death?\u00a0What Is the Grass<\/em> is a conversation across time and space, a study of the astonishment one poet finds in the accomplishment of another, and an attempt to grasp Whitman\u2019s deeply hopeful vision of human possibility.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“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\u00a0collects the best works from seven books of poetry by Mark Doty, acclaimed poet and\u00a0New York Times\u00a0bestselling author of two memoirs,\u00a0Firebird\u00a0and\u00a0Dog Years. Doty\u2019s subjects\u2014our mortal situation,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":143701,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,104],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-143700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-michelle-recommends","category-poetry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.danverslibrary.org\/readthis\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Fire-to-Fire.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6V6sR-BnK","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danverslibrary.org\/readthis\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danverslibrary.org\/readthis\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danverslibrary.org\/readthis\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danverslibrary.org\/readthis\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danverslibrary.org\/readthis\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=143700"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.danverslibrary.org\/readthis\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143700\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":143746,"href":"https:\/\/www.danverslibrary.org\/readthis\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143700\/revisions\/143746"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danverslibrary.org\/readthis\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/143701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danverslibrary.org\/readthis\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=143700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danverslibrary.org\/readthis\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=143700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danverslibrary.org\/readthis\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=143700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}