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Quote by Mark Doty

“This is what history is: all those centuries of bodies, moving over these canals, twisting and blooming into life in these houses, these streets; all that flesh hungering, coming together, separating, continuing, accumulating, relinquishing, aging and breaking down. Bodies as tulips bent to the demands of light, colored into blossom, spent.”

Quote by Mark Doty

Book:Still Life with Oysters and Lemon

Work

Still Life with Oysters and Lemon

This book is a poignant exploration of the intricacies of human emotions and the impact of personal tragedy on individual lives. more

Author

Mark Doty, born on August 10, 1953, is a renowned American poet. His works are known for their profound emotions and unique perspectives, exploring themes such as human emotions, nature, and urban life. more

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“Being in grief, it turns out, is not unlike being in love. In both states, the imagination's entirely occupied with one person. The beloved dwells at the heart of the world, and becomes a Rome: the roads of feeling all lead to him, all proceed from him. Everything that touches us seems to relate back to that center: there is no other emotional life, no place outside the universe of feeling centered on its pivotal figure.”

World Heart Persons States Feelings Seems Turns Universe Imagination Grief Figures Emotional Relate Beloved Rome Being In Love Pivotal Emotional Life

Book:Heaven's Coast: A Memoir

Source: Heaven's Coast: A Memoir

“Even sad stories are company. And perhaps that's why you might read such a chronicle, to look into a companionable darkness that isn't yours.”

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“To choose to live with a dog is to agree to participate in a long process of interpretation, a mutual agreement though the human being holds most of the cards.”

Humans Long Process Human Beings Dog Agree Cards Agreement Mutual Interpretation

Book:Dog Years: A Memoir

Source: Dog Years: A Memoir

“Grief does not seem to me to be a choice. Whether or not you think grief has value, you will lose what matters to you. The world will break your heart. So I think we’d better look at what grief might offer us. It’s like what Rilke says about self-doubt: it is not going to go away, and therefore you need to think about how it might become your ally.”

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“One ambition of poetry, certainly, is to create a reverberant silence in its wake, one that means more or differently than the silence that preceded the poem.”

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Author:Mark Doty

“We long to connect; we fear that if we do, our freedom and individuality will disappear.”

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Book:Still Life with Oysters and Lemon: On Objects and Intimacy

Source: Still Life with Oysters and Lemon: On Objects and Intimacy

“The World Will Break Your Heart. Grief might be, in some ways, the long aftermath of love, the internal work of knowing, holding, more fully valuing what we have lost.”

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“Anytime I'm involved with anything that's well-received, it's a surprise to me.”

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“In Judith Barrington's striking collection, Horses and the Human Soul, human emotions come ushered and accompanied by animal companions, especially the horses this speaker loves. Here they are witnesses, companions to the spirit, and as vulnerably mortal as human beings. Socially and politically alert, lamenting and celebrating, Barrington's passionate poems inscribe the broad range of her affections.”

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Author:Mark Doty