Reviews

Sweet Machine by Mark Doty

ddrake's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad

5.0

"Fog Suite" is one of my absolute all time favorite poems. I read it in the late 90's, when this collection came out, and it stayed with me over the decades until I recently looked it up again and re-read it and this collection.

In the poem, Doty compares language to fog -- but it's surprising how those words stayed with me over the decades. That indelibility, that persistence is not at all like fog. But that's what makes language so lovely.

moonpix's review against another edition

2.0

Maybe I'm dead inside because these did not work for me at all. There needs to be a moratorium on poems about NYC. And pet dogs

issystephenson's review against another edition

5.0

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

hyzenthlay76's review against another edition

5.0

I have no words.

"Golden Retrievals" is one of the most beautiful poems about dogs, about living in the moment...

Mark Doty has become my favorite contemporary poet.

athenalindia's review

4.0

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 poet's memoir of the time he spent taking care of his lover, while his lover died of AIDS. This collection was published two years after that memoir, and the same images haunt the pages.

What would I have made of the collection without that context? I'm not sure.