Customer Reviews

Atlantis: Poems by

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For contemorary readers who hunger for the melody and cadence, imagery of nature, strong personal emotion, and idealism of poetry in the Romantic tradition, Mark Doty has emerged with a lyrical style reminiscent of Shelly or Keats. The most immediately appealing feature of his work is its sheer lyric loveliness. Loveliness does not stand high these days in the vocabulary of critical praise, but one only need leaf through Doty's Atlantis Poems to be reminded that it does exist and can't easily be called by another name.

I only started reading Mark Doty because he teaches at my university and I wanted to get a feel for his style before taking a course by him. I read Turtle, Swan, and only one of the poems in that collection left any impression upon me. (The title poem of the book--it touched me very deeply.) I came into Atlantis not expecting more than one poem to impress me.

I was pleasantly surprised. In this collection, he wrote many more poems about his homosexuality (as opposed to boring nature poems), people he knew, and talked more about his love of language. He talked about real things as opposed to the esoteric things poets seem to love. It's poetry that is simple enough for most to understand, yet it doesn't hit you over the head with what it's trying to say.

Mark Doty is always lyrical, and uses wonderful words, but this collection also has some poems about real life. It is well worth the price and time.

This is the most exquisite book of poetry I have ever read. Doty uses images so vivid and beautiful it will leave you in tears, wishing for more. He is one of the most transcendant poets of the century.

Mark Doty's poems are seriously overrated. They are overwritten, full of what reads as faked-up emotion, limited in range--both of subject and imagery. Can't think of anything to say? Just pile on more language.

Pretentious, overdone, myopic, ca-ca