August 10, 1953– Mark Doty is one of my favorite American poets. Elegant, unflinching, melancholy, his words haunt me. I appreciate the duality of the rural & the urbane in his work. In one poem he describes the plant life of a vacant city lot. As a gay man I have always sought out a life in an urban center while being enchanted by a cabin at the beach. I get that vibe from Doty’s work. I have attempted to take my city lot & make a place for nature, my tiny attempt at living in both worlds. Doty:
“I’ve always been a poet who wrote about urban life because I love the layers & surprises & the jangly complexities of cities. I feel at home in cities, being a gay man. It’s a place of permission & possibility. In 1990, I moved to Provincetown. I also love this landscape of salt marshes, beaches & dunes, but I had to write about it in a different way. In the marsh, there is no narrative. All that happens is that a bird flies by, the tide comes in & goes out.”
His poetry addresses that push between artifice & the natural:
“I play around with the distinction between art & nature, the real & the false. My experience often feels pretty seamless. I’ve always been drawn to artifice & the beauties of surface and shadings and tone. A lot of the process of development is figuring out how to be all of yourself in a poem. How do you let your love of wigs & make-up, your sense of humor, your anger find its way into the poem?”
Doty’s poetry collections have transported me. But, it is a work of prose that has moved me the most. I read his lovely book Dog Years: A Memoir (2009) in just 2 sittings, ironically taking a break only to walk my dogs. The book is Doty’s meditation on life & loss & the method that grief squeezes into life & never lets go, Doty tells of the life he shared with his 2 dogs as he experiences the decline & death of his longtime partner Wally from HIV, & how the canines move & affect a new relationship with a new love & future spouse.
How many ways have all my dogs had a profound effect on how I have dealt with the heights & valleys of my life & my 36 year relationship with a certain man? The Husband & I have had a dog, usually 2, for nearly all our time together. At one point, I think we stayed a couple because of the dogs. The Husband & I have lived with, loved & buried 4 dogs. Our rescued terriers, Junior & Lulu are dogs 5 & 6. In 2014 we lost 2 canine friends, dogs loved as if they were our own.
In Dog Years, Doty tells of his improbable decision to adopt a dog as a companion for his dying partner. Beau is a large golden retriever, possibly abused & in need of love & companionship. Beau is made part of the family, paired with Arden, their other retriever. Beau responds well to his new life, & bounces back in spirit & body. The 2 dogs become Doty’s best friends, comfort, & the reason to keep going during the worst of days. The retriever’s moxie, loyalty, & affection give him hope when all else fails.
Dog Years is moving & intimate, with profound insight on the life we share with animals & the lessons they teach us. Doty gives a look at the vulnerability of dogs, how they rely on us, & the positive outlook they bring, & their gift of unconditional love. Dog Years is not sentimental though. It is mournfully & movingly affecting. We all will have to deal with loss at some point. This book will help just a little bit.
The very handsome Doty’s writing has been honored by the National Book Critics Circle Award, PEN Award, LA Times Book Prize, Lambda Literary Award & T.S. Eliot Prize. He has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, National Endowment For The Arts, & Merrill Foundation.
“To be human is probably to be conscious of time in a way that dogs are free of , but I love to, at least for a little while, slip that harness & let myself go into the edgeless world of animal time! That’s probably an aspect of the relationship between lyric poets & people we term “insane”, we both lose our identities on a regular basis.”
Doty is divorced from writer Paul Lisicky. They were together for 15 years. He now lives with Alexander Hadel in NYC & East Hampton. He has a new volume of poems, Deep Lane, to be published this fall.
Doty & I are the same age, along with a love of men & dogs, we are both bloggers. Believe me, I don’t mean to imply that we are in the same company. Now I must sign off. Lulu & Junior are waiting for their morning walk.
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