Deep Lane, Mark Doty

I wasn't planning on going to this (or writing about this reading), but I went with a friend at the NYU CW house because she had to attend a reading for her class last week, so I decided to tag along.

I didn't know much about Mark Doty before going, but I had heard of him from discussions in other classes and knew that he owned a home out in eastern Long Island, which is a place I enjoy going. I've gone to a lot of different farms and "hotspots" further east than I'm form (I'm considered eastern LI but definitely close to central, whereas Doty is much further out east). That being said, I felt kind of inclined to attend this reading and support a fellow resident.

I read Robin's review of this same reading and didn't really think he looked older than I had expected, but that might be because I had seen him before. I happened to be caught in the same thunderstorm on my way to the city, which was TERRIBLE!

"Deep Lane" really stuck with me, because I enjoy writing about location and have been exploring that a lot more this semester, and I really thought that this piece was not only written well, but was also read well that day. I am very sentimental about the street my parents live on in Florida, so I connected with it well (we joke that they live on the "other Park Avenue", the less exciting one). Anyway, this poem made me want to visit Deep Lane, which I believe is a good indicator of the quality of a location-piece: it makes you want to go there, and I shared Doty's sentimentality.

One thing I really appreciated was the way that Doty really explained the background behind his work, which Robin also touched on in his response. I kept imagining what I would have been like if I were reading my pieces to a crowd. I'm sure that I would have explained them a bit, but probably not as in-depth and personally as Doty did. However, I appreciated all of the personal pieces of information he told us, like how he hadn't spoken to his dad in years, or how he thought it felt to lose someone was like losing a leg. I lost someone really special to me last semester, and when he compared the loss of a person to the loss of a limb, or a part of a limb, I had to catch my breath and just take a moment to relate that. That's exactly how it feels.

Overall, I'm glad my friend dragged me to this reading, because I wouldn't have appreciated any of the things I ended up noticing about Mark Doty and how great his work is. I would absolutely go to another one of his readings if the opportunity arose.