Mark Doty's Deep Lane

I attended Mark Doty's reading from his book Deep Lane on Thursday at the Lillian Vernon Creative Writing House. He was much older than I thought, and read his poems in a calm, matter-of-fact manner, even thought he had just been caught in a thunderstorm coming from Long Island. Two poems stuck out for me. One of them was "Deep Lane", which was an actual road near his house in Long Island. I was surprised that such an acclaimed poet could be inspired by something so simple as the road in front of his home. He commented that it was the most beautiful name for a road that he had ever heard. The other poem he read was called "Ghost" and it was about his family. Doty said that he has not written a poem about his family for many years, especially after his father did not speak to him for the last five years of his life. It was interesting to hear how artists have periods in their lives where they write about certain topics, or don't write about certain topics. The poem was really interesting though. One thing from the poem that I remember is that a man is sitting on the bench, and when he gets up, he notices that his left leg is a couple inches shorter than the right. And, I thought that it was such an interesting way to represent grief. The death of one person affects you as a leg being shorter would. In that way, grief is annoying, always, and irreparable.