Mark Doty–School of the Arts

School of the Arts is a great book of modern poetry. I saw Mark at the UCLA Festival of Books where I picked up this book. It has a lot of great stuff–including a meaningful cover–the dog image is Arden.

Arden the dog figures very prominently in Stairs a great poem–and likely my favorite of the book–I liked is much more then the sex sequence “The Vault”. There are a lot of poems dedicated to other artists–mostly painters, but Lorca and some other poets show up. Aging and the changing nature of beauty are strong themes. All of this comes together in the Title piece which is largely about an art school for out of town suburbanites impact on Doty’s art community. Art Auction about trying to buy a small work which turns out to have a second artists hand on it, thus driving the price out of reach is great.

A very good work of poetry and I will likely read more stuff from Mark.