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Rating: 
Summary: Decay
Review: Doty recently visited my college, and after I read his work, I felt truly honored to have met him. He was a wonderful speaker, and very personable.This shows through his poetry as well. He is a person speaking on real issues, in a very contemporary manner. Not only is AIDS a question of the homosexual culture and lifestyle, but something for the family, circle of friends, and nation to pause and consider. Yet, Doty does well in keeping the theme of decay and demolishment in check with painfully potent words that make you pause and think. Though, there is hope, and this is not horribly bleak.
Rating:
Summary: Decay
Review: Doty recently visited my college, and after I read his work, I felt truly honored to have met him. He was a wonderful speaker, and very personable. This shows through his poetry as well. He is a person speaking on real issues, in a very contemporary manner. Not only is AIDS a question of the homosexual culture and lifestyle, but something for the family, circle of friends, and nation to pause and consider. Yet, Doty does well in keeping the theme of decay and demolishment in check with painfully potent words that make you pause and think. Though, there is hope, and this is not horribly bleak.
Rating:
Summary: Mark's story
Review: Levine selected My Alexandria for the National Poetry Series a few years ago. And after reading this collection, you can see why it is Doty's best. It's a grim collection, focusing on death and grief, but an elegant one. "Bill's Story" alone is worth the price of the book. This is a book for anyone who loves poetry or has had AIDS tough their life. Good work Mr. Doty.
Rating: 
Summary: My MOR
Review: Mark Doty is a gifted writer, but there is such a mix of profound work and slight image in My Alexandria, that he comes with a little too much hype for someone coming to this book first. There are some exquisite images, but as an AIDS work, this is slim. This work is more about our humanity and how we deal with what we face in the world more than it is about a pandemic. The most moving poem in this collection is, "With Animals", which is wisely used in the closing third. Some of the work is empty and rich at the same time, which is a lot like a Hostess Cupcake, but we can't live on cupcakes. When Doty really reaches, his work is utterly transforming. Here it is progressive and showcases the talent he shows later in his career.
Rating: 
Summary: great poet, best book
Review: Mark Doty seems to be a national treasure in the making. Haunting, achingly beautiful work. These metaphors, at first read may seem insignificant, with an eerie capacity to creep toward the back of one's mind and stay there ... as effortlessly as shadows sailing through the best passages of Plath.
Rating:
Summary: Beauty and Sadness
Review: My Alexandria is undoubtedly one of my favorite volumes of poetry written within the last ten years. Doty's aesthetic reminds me of the aesthetic of the great Japanese woodblock artists -- "mono no aware" -- beauty and sadness. These are poems of haunting emotional resonance and power that are exquisitely rendered in beautifully crafted, ravishingly polished arabesques of language. Doty's sensual imagery is simply stunning, and his sense of metaphor simultaneously organic and epiphanic. The poems "Brilliance" and "Difference," in particular, are poems that I know I will remain in love with always. I highly recommend this beautiful book.
Rating:
Summary: Beauty and Sadness
Review: My Alexandria is undoubtedly one of my favorite volumes of poetry written within the last ten years. Doty's aesthetic reminds me of the aesthetic of the great Japanese woodblock artists -- "mono no aware" -- beauty and sadness. These are poems of haunting emotional resonance and power that are exquisitely rendered in beautifully crafted, ravishingly polished arabesques of language. Doty's sensual imagery is simply stunning, and his sense of metaphor simultaneously organic and epiphanic. The poems "Brilliance" and "Difference," in particular, are poems that I know I will remain in love with always. I highly recommend this beautiful book.
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