In my extensive reading of poetry, I have studied no other poet as much as I have Mark Doty. With each book of his I read, I am able to more quickly notice and learn new craft lessons, partly because I am so familiar with his style and partly because his content is so immediately discernible to me (due to certain parallels in our lives). With this collection, I was able to see what his critics are saying when they point out how his descriptions of color and light tend to meander a bit too long.

Mark Doty's third collection, MY ALEXANDRIA, won the 1993 National Book Critics Circle Award, and his new volume of poems, ATLANTIS, crowns its predecessor's substantial achievements. Its mythical title notwithstanding, the realm of Atlantis is fully human, subject to forces that make most things seem "fallen down, broken apart, carried away." Yet among Doty's notable strengths is his ability to celebrate this realm of grief and loss as a place that nonetheless offers an array of "gorgeous[ness]...

Mark Doty – “Atlantis”HarperCollins Books, 1995Mark Doty seems to paint one fluid stream of pictures in his brilliant collection of poetry, “Atlantis.” He provides a thought provoking, and world questioning escape by truly mastering the art of flow, making his poems run like a stream trickling over tiny stones. Though each poem illuminates a different moment, they all seem to run together in one glorious landscape. The attention to detail Doty pays to the smallest things or moments is brilliant....

"This month the new comes / so dizzyingly quick it coexists / with all autumn's evidence... / How are we to read this nameless season - renewal, promise, / confusion? Should we be glad or terrified / at how quickly things are replaced? / Never again the particulars / of that August garden: waving cosmos, / each form's crisp darkness in relief / against the stars. / No way to know what's gone, only the new flowerings, the brilliance / that candles after rain" (Grosse Fuge, 19).I love it when I se...

https://thebookloversboudoir.wordpres...This is a new poet for me. I chose the book at random from available titles at the National Poetry Library. I do that a lot and it often yields gems. Atlantis is one such gem. I thought this collection was fantastic. I enjoyed all of the poems on offer. I enjoyed the themes, the light and dark moments and the poet’s use of language and imagery. Atlantis is a powerful, impressive collection.

A brave candling theory I'm making for you,little lamplight; believe,and ripple out freeas shimmer is. Go.Don't go. Go.I'm not sure anyone writes about death better than Mark Doty does, but I'm not sure anyone writes about life better than Mark Doty does, either. Atlantis is the poetry collection that deals the most directly with the death of his partner, Wally, from AIDS, but when I think about it ten days after finishing it, I see a riot of colors and textures: brightly hued half-submerged boa...

Mark Doty is such an extraordinary poet. I already look forward to coming back to this book in the future.

Mark Doty looks at things most of us wouldn't notice and turns them into meaning. Rows of frozen mackeral, a crab shell. He finds consolation for death in the ocean's cast offs. In this graceful collection, none stands out above the rest..."the price of gleaming."

On a first read "Atlantis" can be painfully slow reading, as Doty seems to spend the first half of every poem lost in detailed description. However, upon a second or third reading, my appreciation for the collection deepened significantly. For lurking underneath much of the description are the painful themes of loss and slow decay. Indeed, the central eponymous poem, "Atlantis," chronicles the death of Doty’s lover Wally Roberts.By far my favorite poem in the collection, however, is "Homo Will N...

What a beautiful volume of words. Description is powerful and meaningful, as Doty teaches us. His gorgeous musings on nature and meditations on death were so moving. I loved reading this and can see myself reading it again and again. I can't wait to read more of Doty's work.

3.5 i love poetry, it is often soothing to me, makes me look at things in different ways. This book came in my Strand book box, and it was a poet of which I had never heard. It highlights the beauty of the natural world, some striking images are invoked. It is also about death, death due to AIDS, but also the natural death due to their natural cycle in nature. Sunflowers, green crabs and even mackerel. It is hard to describe poetry without including a sample, unless it is a widely known poet. Un...

This book is pretty amazing. With the exception of Keats, I don’t usually read books of poetry these days. I’m a prose/novel person, because I like getting invested in characters, and in general I just love a good story. That said, I plan to read more of Doty’s work. And I will probably end up re-reading Atlantis, because there is clearly A LOT there. Okay, to start with the title, I’m assuming it is no coincidence that the title of this collection is the same as one of Hart Crane’s poems. (Afte...

"Homo Will Not Inherit," "Atlantis," and "Nocturne in Black and Gold" are all worth the price of admission. I admire Doty's specificity with color and water; the book reminded me how much I've let my own lexicon for describing nature completely atrophy because of the urban grey I plopped myself into. The book is organized very well; it will dawn on you that the first section or two are about more than they seem to be about. Unabashedly florid, and indicative of a luminosity capable with words, A...

[rating = B-]I have wanted to read this, and get a copy, for the longest time! Finally getting it, and a signed one at that, I started reading it with celerity. Soon, though, I found the images repetitive and the subject matter boring or overdone. He talks a lot about AIDs and illness and drag and queerness. And this is all good and interesting, being exposed to "the Other" so to say, yet, he really goes over and over the same material. And this is dull. He often has lovely little lines, though

I think I love the ‘idea’ of poetry. I love the thought that there are poets and poems out in the world. It feels very romantic to me. I just have to accept that I will probably never be part of that world. And it’s ok. We’ll leave it where it is. :)

This is an easy to read book of poems that really captures the beauty underlying what is horrible in the world."the world is made beautiful by its beautiful clothes." That may be a misquote, but you get the point.

My favorite poem in this collection is "Rope." Perfect description of Provincetown, Massachusetts. The poet has captured the town in many of the poems. The AIDS struggle is another theme of this collection. Beautiful poems!

I love Mark Doty. I'm as much his groupie as one can be for a poet. I've seen him read several times, and he always makes me weep. His poems are both clever and important. Whether contemplating our souls, wondering "if we could be opened / into this / if the smallest chambers / of ourselves / similarly, / revealed some sky" (9), or meditating on age, relating that "I felt both young and awake / which I never felt / when I was young" (52), his work provides some insightful perspectives on life's

I picked up this 1995 Mark Doty collection out of one of those "little free library" boxes. I had admired several individual Doty poems I had read in the past and took it as a sign it was time to get back to some poetry. In short, the poems that comprise almost the first half of the book are flowing over with Doty's skills, yet weighted down by many metaphors in their search for something profound. Then we get the suite of poems entitled "Atlantis", and Doty's heart breaks in and that magical th...

I love color! Therefore, I love many, many of the poems in Mark Doty's Atlantis collection. His words bring to life his exterior and interior world. I especially love the way he blurs the edges of reality, the haze of the sun and water, the here and there of existence in is poem Fog Argument. Just superb! However, I do think he dilutes the power of the book when he goes off on a rant and rage in Homo Will Not Inherit. I keep waffling back and forth between 2 and 4 stars based on how much I disli...