(one of my favourites)CONCERNING SOME RECENT CRITICISM OF HIS WORK-Glaze and shimmerluster and gleam;can't he think of anythingbut all that sheen?-No such thing,the queen said,as too many sequins.

I've been meaning to read Mark Doty's poetry ever since a fellow poet recommended his work to me last year. SWEET MACHINE was my serendipitous first choice (I found it at a Cape Cod bookstore that my friend also recommended), a collection that celebrates life in all its luminous glory after loss and grief. Many of the poems are long and dense with detail, but that attention to detail is what makes Doty's work so special. It doesn't matter if the topic is a once-in-a-lifetime find at an imported

So so so beautiful. Never cried at a collection of poetry before

I loved so much of this book.

I've never been a huge fan of contemporary poetry. It's a tricky media that can easily be abused, but Doty's writing is some of the most beautiful I have ever encountered. He tells stunning stories about his life, his partner, his partner's AIDS related death, his dog. It's so human and simple. He's one of the very few authors to ever make me cry with his writing. Every writer should be reading his work.

Poems of abundant imagery and questions. Highlights for me were Visitation, about a whale entering the harbour (What did you think, that joy / was some slight thing?") and the questions in Messiah:" Aren't we enlargedby the scale of what we're ableto desire? Everything, the choir insists, might flame;inside these wrappingsburns another, brighter life, quickened, now, by song: hear how it cascades, in overlapping, lapidary waves of praise? Still time. Still time to change."

Wonderful and haunting a perfect October read.

Doty's poems are like a kind of experience of luxury in its deepest sense -- the imagery lush, the spirituality expansive, the poems long and full. This book woke me up to the generous nature of the universe that surrounds us in all its details.

Doty's poetics remind me a bit of Rilke's early work: the idea of taking an object, a person, or an event and using it as the hub of the wheel from which all the ideas ribbon out and whirl around. It's very pretty to watch them swirl, it's true, but I somehow didn't have an emotional entry point into most of these poems. The exceptions were "Messiah (Christmas Portions)" and "Mercy on Broadway." I think the difference here, for me, is that the central event is one moment in time, frozen, instead...

Not as strong as Atlantis for a number of reasons: some of his poems that use New York City as a setting don't transcend the typical, beaten-dead-horse New York City mythologizing the average American has either become inured to or nauseated by; he includes two pieces addressing the same criticism of his work that also lack a certain significance, or merited intention, compared to other poems in the collection; there's more deviation from his usual style here that results in varying degrees of s...

showcases what Doty brilliant mastery of modern lyricism - his ability to address those big, classical questions in the now. what is beauty? what is art? what is love? what is grief? what is the self? Doty tackles them all and more with compact, deft wit.

Town so empty, off season,you'd think that everybody'd died.Certain types of images pervade Sweet Machine: animals, art, city streets in their parade of chaos. Published in 1998 in the immediate wake of the worst of the AIDS epidemic, this collection takes grief and rebirth as its main topics, and sometimes when you think you're getting one you're really getting the other, as in "Murano," which seems to extol glassmaking and Venice but eventually turns dark:... Is this what becomes of art,the ha...

Best poetry collection ever

This was one of the 1999 RUSA Notable Books winners. For the complete list, go to http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/rus...

I feel utterly unqualified to review a book of poems. I read them too fast, I rarely stop and savour them. I mean to, but then I speed up, and catch myself, and have to go back. It's not that I don't like poetry - I do. It's just that I'm not good at reading it.But I enjoyed this, although I didn't love it. There are a couple of poems that will stick with me for a while. Maybe that's all you can ask. It was particularly poignant reading the collection, because I'd previously (years ago) read the...

In the final poem of Sweet Machine, Mark Doty describes grief as “a dim,/salt suspension in which [he’s] moved” through in the years following his lover’s death from AIDS (115). This collection is an exploration of what is meaningful after a prolonged period of suffocating grief. Many poems (“Favrile,” “Lilies in New York,” “Fog Suite,” “Dickeyville Grotto”) are permutations of ars poetica, in which Doty explores if the creation of art is truly a worthy representation of life, and therefore sign...

I just couldn't do most of the this book. I bought it years ago at a clearance place for cheap and kept putting off reading it. While there were 3 poems that spoke to me in this book, most of it was to "element"al and earthy for me.

I will swear by Atlantis and My Alexandria. And I mean in that if offered a choice between these books, I would not want to besmirch the reputation of either by bearing false witness to it. Likewise, the love poems at the end of this book deserve every loving praise--I would join whole choirs to sing to them. I wish I had connected with the other sections.

I love Mark Doty. I love the way he describes things. I love his glimmery, dazzly way of describing things. How he takes the ordinary and makes it memorable and magical. If you ever get the chance to hear him read his poems, go hear him. He brings them to life.

Not sure what to write since most of it went above my head. I guess I prefer my poetry more narrative & less descriptive. Some poems & lines I really enjoyed though (the kimonos...). Some were quite fun (his answers to his detractors -no such thing as too many sequins... though I kind of see the point of his detractors). The title poem will stick with me I think.