WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.570 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:00:02.570 --> 00:00:05.000 align:middle line:84% When a friend told me that she wanted to read more poetry 00:00:05.000 --> 00:00:06.980 align:middle line:84% and asked for recommendations, I didn't 00:00:06.980 --> 00:00:10.370 align:middle line:84% have to think before I said Atlantis by Mark Doty. 00:00:10.370 --> 00:00:13.370 align:middle line:84% I could have easily said anything by Mark Doty. 00:00:13.370 --> 00:00:16.040 align:middle line:84% In the years since I first spent time with Doty's work, 00:00:16.040 --> 00:00:17.720 align:middle line:84% I keep coming back to his writing, 00:00:17.720 --> 00:00:20.330 align:middle line:84% because in it, I find the world distilled 00:00:20.330 --> 00:00:24.380 align:middle line:84% and transformed by an engaged and an engaging mind. 00:00:24.380 --> 00:00:27.230 align:middle line:84% In his prose meditation The Art of Description, Doty 00:00:27.230 --> 00:00:32.119 align:middle line:84% writes, "Poetry concretizes the singular, unrepeatable moment. 00:00:32.119 --> 00:00:34.400 align:middle line:84% It hammers out a speech of form for how 00:00:34.400 --> 00:00:36.860 align:middle line:90% it feels to be one's self." 00:00:36.860 --> 00:00:39.530 align:middle line:84% He writes this about Elizabeth Bishop's "The Fish," 00:00:39.530 --> 00:00:42.980 align:middle line:84% but it so accurately describes his own writing. 00:00:42.980 --> 00:00:45.170 align:middle line:84% To borrow another image from his prose, 00:00:45.170 --> 00:00:47.540 align:middle line:84% Doty's poetry crystallizes the world 00:00:47.540 --> 00:00:50.630 align:middle line:84% with the exactness of a Dutch still life, vividly 00:00:50.630 --> 00:00:53.000 align:middle line:84% real and accurate, but also stamped 00:00:53.000 --> 00:00:57.200 align:middle line:84% with personality and the unique vision of the artist. 00:00:57.200 --> 00:00:59.300 align:middle line:84% This confluence of world and self 00:00:59.300 --> 00:01:03.020 align:middle line:84% makes Doty's poems difficult to paraphrase or briefly quote. 00:01:03.020 --> 00:01:06.290 align:middle line:84% They function fully as poems, as wholes 00:01:06.290 --> 00:01:08.420 align:middle line:84% that draw us along through linked image 00:01:08.420 --> 00:01:11.150 align:middle line:84% and idea, a continuous train of thought that 00:01:11.150 --> 00:01:13.880 align:middle line:84% invites us to follow closely, to delay 00:01:13.880 --> 00:01:17.090 align:middle line:84% our understanding until we can grasp the whole of it. 00:01:17.090 --> 00:01:19.730 align:middle line:84% And yet it's often those brief, rich images 00:01:19.730 --> 00:01:21.560 align:middle line:90% that linger after reading-- 00:01:21.560 --> 00:01:25.310 align:middle line:84% the eerily radiant blue inside of a crab shell, a burning 00:01:25.310 --> 00:01:29.300 align:middle line:84% beauty parlor in the shadow of a highway, the carefulness 00:01:29.300 --> 00:01:31.310 align:middle line:84% and fragility of a domesticated deer's 00:01:31.310 --> 00:01:34.790 align:middle line:84% tongue exploring the speaker's outstretched hand. 00:01:34.790 --> 00:01:38.180 align:middle line:84% Doty writes, "Description is an inexact, loving art, 00:01:38.180 --> 00:01:39.890 align:middle line:90% and a reflexive one. 00:01:39.890 --> 00:01:41.660 align:middle line:84% When we describe the world, we come 00:01:41.660 --> 00:01:44.510 align:middle line:90% closer to saying what we are." 00:01:44.510 --> 00:01:46.940 align:middle line:84% Doty's writing examines and illuminates 00:01:46.940 --> 00:01:50.300 align:middle line:84% both what it observes and the self who observes. 00:01:50.300 --> 00:01:54.110 align:middle line:84% It considers meanings precisely and loves our fleeting world 00:01:54.110 --> 00:01:57.290 align:middle line:90% generously all at once. 00:01:57.290 --> 00:01:59.900 align:middle line:84% A former student of Tucson's own Rincon High School 00:01:59.900 --> 00:02:02.330 align:middle line:84% and the University of Arizona, Mark Doty 00:02:02.330 --> 00:02:04.370 align:middle line:84% is the author of nine collections of poetry 00:02:04.370 --> 00:02:06.170 align:middle line:90% and five volumes of prose. 00:02:06.170 --> 00:02:09.210 align:middle line:84% He's been recognized with numerous grants and awards, 00:02:09.210 --> 00:02:13.130 align:middle line:84% including the 2008 National Book Award for Fire to Fire: New 00:02:13.130 --> 00:02:16.250 align:middle line:84% and Selected Poems and the UK's prestigious T.S. 00:02:16.250 --> 00:02:19.700 align:middle line:84% Eliot Prize for My Alexandria in 1995. 00:02:19.700 --> 00:02:21.350 align:middle line:84% His most recent collection of poetry 00:02:21.350 --> 00:02:23.835 align:middle line:84% is Deep Lane, out earlier this year from Norton, 00:02:23.835 --> 00:02:25.460 align:middle line:84% and we can look forward to a collection 00:02:25.460 --> 00:02:28.370 align:middle line:84% of essays on Walt Whitman, titled What Is the Grass. 00:02:28.370 --> 00:02:31.880 align:middle line:84% Please join me in welcoming Mark Doty. 00:02:31.880 --> 00:02:33.730 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE]