Friday, July 11, 2008

POETRY FRIDAY: Mark Doty...and More


Poetry Readings at Boston University

Place: Sargent College Auditorium at 635 Commonwealth Avenue
Time: 3:45 to 4:30

Monday, July 14th: Heather McHugh
Tuesday, July 15th: Louise Gluck & Frank Bidart
Wednesday, July 16th: Robert Pinsky & Maggie Dietz
Thursday, July 17th: Mark Doty

NOTE: The poetry readings, co-hosted by the Favorite Poem Project and the Boston University School of Education, are free and open to the public.


I had the great privilege of being one of fifty educators selected to participate in the First Annual Summer Poetry Institute for Teachers at Boston University. The poets we educators worked with that year were Robert Pinsky, Louise Gluck, Rosanna Warren, David Ferry, and Mark Doty. All of the poets were great--but the one whose work spoke to me the most was Mark Doty. That’s why I’ve selected one of his poems, A Green Crab’s Shell, for this Poetry Friday. Read what Doty sees in and writes about a crab’s shell. I love the way he ends his poem.

From A Green Crab’s Shell
by Mark Doty

Not, exactly, green:
closer to bronze
preserved in kind brine,

something retrieved
from a Greco-Roman wreck,
patinated and oddly

muscular. We cannot
know what his fantastic
legs were like--

though evidence
suggests eight
complexly folded

scuttling works
of armament, crowned
by the foreclaws'

gesture of menace
and power.

You can read the rest of the poem here.
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At Wild Rose Reader, I have a poem by Cynthia Gray, a New Mexican writer, and more pictures of my trip to New Mexico.

The Poetry Friday Roundup is at Under the Covers.

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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow. I don't know Doty's work, but I adore this. Favorite bit:

surrounded by
the brilliant rinse
of summer's firmament.

and the complete last 7 lines.

I'm off to see if my library has him. Thanks!

Mary Lee said...

I, too, am off to the library to find and read more Mark Doty.

And...how do I get on the mailing list for the SECOND Annual Summer Poetry Institute for Teachers??? :-)

Elaine Magliaro said...

Laura & Mary Lee,

After I had decided to post a Mark Doty poem, I found "A Green Crab's Shell"...and fell in love with it.

Mary Lee,

I think this year's institute is the seventh. To find out more about the institutes, I suggest you head on over to the Favorite Poem website. Here's the URL to the page for teachers:

http://www.favoritepoem.org/forTeachers.html

You should be able to print off an application from the website. Although it's too late for this year's institute--you can try for next year's. A teacher usually has to attend with an administrator for her/his school district.