Friday, November 21, 2008

Poetry review: “Fire to Fire” by Mark Doty | csmonitor.com

Poetry review: “Fire to Fire” by Mark Doty | csmonitor.com: "Striking imagery and a powerful imagination are two of his best tools, as evident in his earliest poems. When Doty writes about an Easter contest in “Ararat,” for example (from “Turtle, Swan,” 1987), he doesn’t recall an egg, but an oval full of glorious possibilities.

What might have coiled inside it?

Crocuses tight on their clock-springs,
a bird who’d sing himself into an angel
in the highest reaches of the garden,
the morning’s flaming arrow?

Any small thing can save you.
The descriptions are surprising yet spot-on, and the precise imagery provides the perfect balance for plainer, more conversational phrasing."

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