Source

by Mark Doty

This bold wide-ranging new collection -- Mark Doty's sixth book of poems -- demonstrates the unmistakable lyricism, fierce observation and force of feeling that have made his poetry significant to readers on both sides of the Atlantic. The new poems in Source deepen Doty's exploration of the paradox of selfhood. Are we edgeless and unbounded, or locked within our own singularity? What is it to be one person in the world's great multiplicity of selves? Source investigates matters of public life -- the degradation of Walt Whitman's vision of a democratic America, a child's display of longing on a New York sidewalk, Provincetown's restless summer crowds. But the poems also turn toward the realm of private struggle, how the self is claimed and lost through desire, how the dapple of light on a hotel windowsill makes a claim for the life of the soul. Source is a complex, boldly colored selfportrait; its muscular lines argue fiercely with the fact of limit, and pulse with the drama of perception, the quest to forge meaning.

Genres: Poetry, Queer, LGBT, Contemporary, Literature

69 pages, Paperback

First published November 27, 2001

About the author

Mark Doty is a poet, essayist, and memoirist. He is the author of ten books of poetry, including Deep Lane and Fire to Fire: New and Selected Poems, which won the National Book Award. He lives in New York, New York.

Reviews

[Clara]

“Experience is an intact fruit,/ core and flesh and rind of it; once cut open,/ entered, it can’t be the same, can it?/ That is the dream of the poem:/ as if we could look out/ through that moment’s blushed skin” (74)

[shannon]

i like how existential one small idea can become in this poetry. letter to walt whitman was my favourite

[Timothy Juhl · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is no question of my admiration for Doty's poetry. He never ceases to amaze and astound me with his lyrical combinations of words that seem to bring a deeper sense of meaning to the most ordinary of moments.

This slim collection is roughly 19 poems, and typical of any poetry collection, there are the hits and the less memorable poems, but Doty's skill is evident in the opening poem "A Little Dead Rabbit in the Grass". The poem is what the title says and with Doty's artistry, he transforms this event, finding a small rabbit dead in his yard, into a moment of wonder and an elegy.

Published in 2001, the book is dedicated to his then husband, Paul (they have since divorced) and there are a couple of poems that reflect on that relationship (I do thing the break-up was amicable, if I remember right). What really touched me was a moment in the poem "Lost in the Stars," a memory of attending a benefit art show, drag show, in 1992 for people with AIDS and in the poem, Doty reminded me of his lover, Wally, who died in 1994 from the disease. It actually caught in my chest for a second, as does any unexpected reference to those years and the losses our community suffered.

The third poem that stands out for me, was "Brian Age 7" which is really an ekphractic poem about a child's drawing seen among some grade school drawings on display in a pharmacy. I don't know who Brian is/was, but I know who he was at age 7 as Doty gave him dimension beyond his young artistic vision of himself.

Like I said, there are some misses for me (this doesn't mean they are bad poems, Doty doesn't write bad poetry). I am not a fan of long poems, especially poems that go on for several pages. Doty's poems tend to be long, even the 'shorter' poems and I don't mind because of the beautiful words that you find within his lines. Mark Doty gets a pass on those longer poems, I just don't swoon as much when I read one of them.

[Patricia Murphy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Doty's poems always delight. I love his ability to focus intently on a specific object, fleshing out not only image but layers of meaning. Some of my favorite moments:

Here is some halo the living made together.

The sign said immunology but I read illuminology.

Could you even name it, that longing—which suddenly seems to rule these streets,

Democratic America joined by delight in the beauty of boys,

Is it true then, what your descendant said, that poetry makes nothing happen?

Exiles see exiles everywhere.

Heaven is here, and horrifying.

Experience is an intact fruit, core and flesh and rind of it; once cut open, entered, it can’t be the same, can it?

[Doug Snyder]

though there's something more tender, beneath our vanity,
our will to become objects of desire:
we sweat the mark of our presence onto the cloth.
here is some halo the living made together.

[]

you who were taken, you who are gone now
in the drift and ash of the lyric
we've made of you, gone into the snowfall
still unreeling somewhere, repetitive, poised, so relentless
you might take it for stillness, how will we remember you?

[]

not our histories or who we love
or certainly our faces, which dissolve
even as we're living. not a bud
or a cinder, not a seed
or a spark: something else:

obdurate, specific, insoluble.
something in us does not erode.

[Kari · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some of my favorite contemporary poetry. I love the way Doty manipulates scale. He often begins with the smallest object, then expands to the whole universe, and finally, distills it all back down to a single moment. Sublime.

[Emerson John Tiu Ng · Rating 4 out of 5]

nice set of poems

[Miffybooks · Rating 5 out of 5]

"something in us does not erode."

i sent mark doty an email right after i finished this book. just to say thank you. i hope he reads it

[Naomi Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

While I didn't find this quite as transporting as Still Life with Oysters (a very different book), I really loved this slim volume from 2001.

The title poem, "Source," which closes the collection, is kind of miraculous, the way it offers an ars poetica even as it relates a roadside encounter with three horses: "The poem wants the impossible; / the poem wants a name for the kind nothing / at the core of time, out of which the foals / come tumbling..."

But my favorite piece here, for the sheer pleasure of reading and re-reading, is "Brian Age 7," and I don't think I like it just because I am a mother of sons charmed by a poet's reflection on a boy's artwork. I love the question it asks of why some things/some art moves us more than other things/other art: "Why do some marks / seem to thrill with life, / possess a portion / of the nervous energy / in their maker's hand?" And his answer, at least about this drawing of a kid with an ice cream cone, is this: "Artless boy, / he's found a system of beauty: / he shows us pleasure / and what pleasure resists."

Mark Doty, by contrast, is always artful. But I think he's done the same thing here with beauty and pleasure.

[Eric Mueller · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mark Doty always delights. His writing is always clear and direct. Syntax is always respected. What I loved about this collection was the length of most of the poems. (Most) weren't so long that they'd be considered "long poems," but their added length offered such a great space to get lost in and revel in for a while.

Two of the shorter poems are some of my favorites of Doty's and poetry in general. "At the Gym," which I've read a million times, but for some reason, maybe because it's been a while since I've read it and I've gotten a little older, or something about being "in the book" as opposed to reading it online or in handouts, I was able to see so much more physical contact other than the desires it expresses.
"To the Engraver of my Skin" I've been looking for for years after seeing it online somewhere. The fact that it's in the same collection as "Paul's Tattoo," is probably not coincidental. Mark Doty is a poet I generally read and say, 'I could get this tattooed on me,' so seeing him write about tattoos and the artists makes too much sense.
All and all this is a solid read that'll open your heart up and help you feel the world.

[A. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this for my poetry group. Doty's language (the flow of his words, how they sound in your mouth when you read them and the breadth of his vocabulary) really stood out. So many beautiful lines. Many of the poems in this collection share similar themes. He's concerned with what is permanent and what erodes. I felt at times he got in the way of his own poems. Perhaps a bit too self reflective when an image or an idea could have stood on its own. I felt this was true of the otherwise beautiful title poem.

My favorite poems were Brian Age 7, Essay: The Love of Old Houses, American Sublime and To the Engraver of My Skin. In most of these Doty is working on several layers. There's the surface layer but just underneath of it he's playing with the idea of relationships or writing in a nuanced and very interesting way.

Of the longer poems and there are several, I enjoyed Letter to Walt Whitman the best. He seems to summon the marvelous American poet and commune with him in an entertaining way that seems as relevant as it is humorous.

[E · Rating 4 out of 5]

Doty's language is so compressed, tight, precise - like aged, thick balsamic vinegar - a little goes a long way on the tongue. These poems are both an emotional and intellectual pleasure, esp. the lengthy "Letter to Walt Whitman," wondering Walt to the present ("I wonder if you'd like those boys/in underpants looming huge on billboards/over Seventh Avenue?"); "Brian Age 7"; "Essay: The Love of Old Houses," where writing, and love, and renovation are layered like the wax of the burnished wood; "To the Engraver of My Skin," where tattoos bespeak love and fidelity ("I understand the pact is mortal,/agree to bear this permanence"); "Summer Landscape"; and the horses and meditation of "Source" ("Experience is an intact fruit,/core and flesh and rind of it; once cut open,/entered, it can't be the same, can it?"

[Richard O'Brien · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sadly, I came across this collection only recently. Or maybe it was a good thing. These poems remind me of what poetry should be: a marriage of concise language and revelation that allows us to share in the poet's experience. Much has been said about Doty, he is the logical successor to this poet and that poet, but Doty carves his own path. With poems like Letters to Walt Whitman and Manhattan: Luminism (two of my favorites in this collection), Doty proves that his work is a cut above what much of American poety is about these days.

[Ethan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoy his use of simile and metaphor: it is often beautiful and striking. I also like the slow, easy pace of his poetry. He's not in a hurry, and his poems have a thoughtfulness, a sort of rumination, that is refreshing. He ends his poems fairly well: an interesting image, or an illuminating thought. Overall, a really nice collection. I can't say I loved every poem or that it blew me away, but Doty is definitely one of my favorite poets. He really does some neat stuff.

[Kent · Rating 4 out of 5]

It seems that Wally is going to be an inescapable subject for Doty's books. However, what I appreciate in this book is how the past, as a personal consistency, exists inside someone. Mainly through the figure of Whitman, and then in the recurring birds that appear in the poem, reminding the speaker of his heritage in the American poet.

[Jo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well, I love Mark Doty's writing, and this slim volume of poetry is full of transcendent moments he's found everywhere, from the sheen of a much-loved, much polished floor to the unexpectedly still body of a little rabbit found by the back door, to summer landscapes, Durer paintings and Walt Whitman. This is life, this is art, this dazzles.

[Bill Tarlin · Rating 2 out of 5]

The high points were very high but for me that amounts to only two or three of the poems included. The language is exquisitely controlled throughout but sometimes that mastery is applied to sequences that struggle to rise above the level of diary entries. Worth a look if you stumble across it on the shelf somewhere.

[Joy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Poetry takes some concentration for me to understand. I liked some of the poems in this book. Some seemed too personal to be universal, if that makes sense. I liked the one about the fish, and the one about heaven on earth.

[Edward Ferrari · Rating 3 out of 5]

One or two poems in this book I'll come back to over the next 50 or so years (touch wood) but the rest are too convoluted for my taste, too contrived. Will be investigating earlier books as know this is fairly late career and others have said the earlier stuff is quite different.

[Meredith · Rating 3 out of 5]

I took a workshop with him awhile ago. While he isn't one of my favorites, meeting him in person made me like him more.

[Lara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Shimmering vision, reverent heart.

The title poem is like a sister to James Wright's "The Blessing," which is one of my most beloved.

[Sonia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read selected poems from this book, and got the chance to go deep into them for a class. I loved how Doty weaves from the most complex to the clearest simplicity.

[Sarah]

Source: Poems by Mark Doty (2002)

[SmarterLilac · Rating 3 out of 5]

To me, these poems have slightly more emotional resonance than those in Atlantis, but that's about the only thing I like about them.

[Mills College Library]

811.54 D7258s 2001

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first half is awesome, especially the "Letter to Walt Whitman."