Mark Doty's poetry has long been recognized for its daring and honesty, its ability to find transcendent beauty even in the everyday and the painful, with an unwavering gaze that—as Philip Levine says—"doesn't look away from anything." In the poems of Deep Lane, the challenges are greater: there is more loss than ever before and more to be gained. "Pure appetite," he writes wryly at the beginning of the collection, "I would know nothing about that." And the next poem answers: Down there, the little snot-star of desire works all night, secretly: in the morning a new line running over the wet grass, close to the surface, like a vein. Wouldn't you want the road of excess to lead to the palace of wisdom, wouldn't it be nice? Deep Lane is a book of dives: into the earth beneath the garden, into the dark substrata of a life. Yet, these poems ultimately seek restoration, through the possibilities that keep the speaker above ground: gardens and animals; the pleasure of vision; the world regulated by reason. Again and again, an image of self-sacrifice and sacrifice is undermined by the fierce resilience of nature: nature that is not just a solace but a powerful antidote and remedy. Ranging from agony to joy, from great depths to hard peaks, these are poems of grace and kindness.
Pages: 80, Dimensions: 13.2x13.2cm
