The Art of Description Mark Doty Pdf Download Free
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There are some cute lines here and some peachy poems to call back with.
My favorite parts of the book were when the author played with the specific words, senses, and details of descriptions in poems, showing how descriptions worked and how
Alright, I think I understand description and poetry even less after reading this volume, but I think that may be a proficient affair. I didn't look information technology to be focused more on poetry than prose, but I'd beloved to be a ameliorate poet and reader of poesy, so that was peachy.In that location are some beautiful lines here and some slap-up poems to retrieve with.
My favorite parts of the book were when the writer played with the specific words, senses, and details of descriptions in poems, showing how descriptions worked and how if niggling things were changed in the verse form, the feel would be way different.
Definitely worth a read and a re-read.
This is ane of the books recommended in Vandermeer's Wonderbook. It definitely fabricated me want to read more of his recommendations.
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The poets Doty uses for examples range from Shelley to Jean Valentine (a personal favorite) and his discussions are always heady and enlightening.
The volume is d
I can't gush enough about this one. I wanted to underline every word: there wasn't a superfluous phrase in the entire volume. Doty more than convinced me of the power of the word to bring us into closer relationship with the world; while language is never plenty, it'southward all we have and used powerfully by poets it tin open the earth to us.The poets Doty uses for examples range from Shelley to Jean Valentine (a personal favorite) and his discussions are ever heady and enlightening.
The book is dense but non impenetrable and, with some effort, I found myself able to empathize information technology. The attempt was actually minimal because the payoff.
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"Every object rightly seen unlocks a new faculty of the soul." (Emerson)
This volume will provide you with a "workshop in your pocket" to help you see and unlock. This book is well worth the romp through the territory chosen by Coleridge "All-time Give-and-take, Best Order".
Description is one of those words that is worth holding up, like an ode, especially if 1 is a poet. How we describe an object, person, scene, feel is to imbue information technology
with a life beyond what our optics see. Doty takes
"Every object rightly seen unlocks a new kinesthesia of the soul." (Emerson)
This book will provide you with a "workshop in your pocket" to aid you meet and unlock. This book is well worth the romp through the territory called by Coleridge "Best Give-and-take, Best Guild".
Description is one of those words that is worth holding up, like an ode, especially if 1 is a poet. How nosotros describe an object, person, scene, experience is to imbue information technology
with a life across what our eyes run into. Doty takes us through the layers of perception and discussion of paradigm with words that are non lost in some academic subtext. He provides the reader not only with examples of poems, quotations and ideas ranging from George Herbert to contemporary American poets, but also with a set of keys to engage new agreement.
We know the rule, "show don't tell" – which caters to the definition of clarification as the human activity, or technique of describing, non simply listing facts of what we encounter. He reminds the reader of Proust'due south descriptions, resembling those Japanese flowers gathered tightly into a small sea-shell of a sheathing which when dropped into water, slowly and yet surprisingly, expands and blooms. And so information technology is to braid layers of perceptions, including all the senses, and reverberate both on what nosotros observe and what is invoked from the by, and if we're lucky, to observe a metaphor, stumble on a indicate of view, and so as to create a totally unique blossom. Doty has one chapter devoted to different Sunflower poems, where he analyzes the tone, message; an entire affiliate on Elizabeth Bishop'due south poem, The Fish and references a dozen complete poems.
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There are aspects of World into Give-and-take which I enjoyed. I dear how Doty thinks about col
I often tell my friends that I like Marking Doty equally a craftsman more than I like his poesy. World into Discussion, which comes under the Graywolf serial, "The Fine art of...", is a poetry craft book that doesn't announced so. With just 6 essays, World into Word covers Doty's intense ability to prolong and excavate the human activity of seeing, showing that seeing can be enlivened beyond the mechanic and lacklustre nature of daily life.At that place are aspects of World into Word which I enjoyed. I love how Doty thinks almost colour and notices it in the world. I too honey his extended analysis of Elizabeth Bishop's "The Fish", which I think is the finest essay of the drove. He makes a potent case for the demand for contemporary poetry to bring the world back into their lines, to regain sense and perception. Less convincing were the essays about sunflowers, and the titular essay - The Art of Description - which is a series of 26 vignettes linked in A-B-C format. For the former, I idea the insights a lilliputian abstruse, and for the latter, I thought the structure forced.
Nevertheless, Doty's writing is wonderfully dense and carefully plotted. I ever honey looking through his eyes, and this book is a adept tonic to be reintroduced to poems I've loved and forgotten. I don't think it deserves poor reviews just considering information technology is a poesy craft volume (and not a prose 1). World into Discussion is one of Doty'southward finer works, but its just that perhaps I wouldn't pick this as an introduction to Doty's oeuvre. 4 stars.
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It was with this quaint allegory in heed that I read Mark Doty's The Art of Clarification: World into Word, recently published by Graywolf Press. While I have always admired Doty's poems—particularly his collections Sweet Machine and My Alexandria—I must confess that I half-expected to encounter some expressive-only-stale workshop chestnuts peppered with a healthy dollop of Poundian imagism. ("Throw the object on to the visual imagination," Pound laconically wrote in 1934'southward ABC of Reading.) While The Art of Description is ultimately geared for a offset or emerging writer, Doty's jovial and illustrative prose, surprisingly eclectic range of sample poems, and constant acknowledgement that the registering of experience (and thus linguistic communication) is fraught with subjectivity all brand this brief study worthy of whatsoever poet's bookshelf...Read the rest at the site
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Doty also points to a critical problem with then much current poetry:
"Startling, to go description-hunting and realize that I can pollex through whole books of recent poems with very picayune evocation of sense perceptio
With this drove of thoughts and essays. Mark Doty shows that not only is he a fine poet, he is too a groovy explicator of poetry and advocate for its craft. He argues effectively for description of the world and the inner feel of it, and the informing of each by the other.Doty also points to a critical trouble with so much electric current verse:
"Startling, to go description-hunting and realize that I can thumb through whole books of contempo poems with very little evocation of sense perception within them. Why is this the case? I declare myself here on the side of allegiance to the sensible, things as they are, the given, the incompletely knowable, never to get done or go information technology correct or render it whole: ours to say and say. The mightiest of our resources brought to the task, to make the world existent."
There is a loss of organized religion in the ability of linguistic communication to exist more than solipsistic, and a concomitant loss in the craft of making things sensible in both definitions of the word:
"Now everybody in creation mistrusts language, and one-half the poems we read brand a nod toward the unsayable. What's to be done? Language won't do what we wish it would, only we have nothing else—so we have to go forward and behave as if information technology could exercise what we wanted (with some religion in the miraculous fact that it does, from fourth dimension to time, give the states a "Song of Myself" or a Tender Buttons, something the world wouldn't be the same without).
"Maybe we can inhabit the interesting middle ground that lies between, on the one side, giving upwards on referentiality altogether, and, on the other, cleaving to an outdated notion that words can exist controlled, can say what we mean to say when we wish to make use of them."
This a book for lovers of beautiful words and the desperate arts and crafts of believing that their distillation in unexpected liquors still makes life more alive.
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For writers, peculiarly for poets, these brief and cogent essays offering opportunities for learning most how description works in the verse form, and how a deft selection of language tin alter tone, mood, meaning.
Lovely test of Bishop's seminal "The Fish."
Worth studying if you desire to write write most poetry, or to understand how poems operate.
I loved this book, but then, I am a fan of most of Doty'due south piece of work--so that's no surprise.For writers, specially for poets, these brief and cogent essays offer opportunities for learning nearly how description works in the verse form, and how a deft option of language tin alter tone, mood, meaning.
Lovely exam of Bishop'due south seminal "The Fish."
Worth studying if you want to write write most poetry, or to understand how poems operate.
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Unorthodox in its arroyo, subtle, and even so quite insightful, Doty not but brings about compelling analysis of a smattering of writing styles, but likewise urges the reader to principal their individual skill of observation.
On this, Doty cogently writes:
"To some caste, the art of clarification is the art of perception; what is required, in order to say what you see, is enhanced atte
The Fine art Of Description is a very refreshing no frills examination of the many ways clarification can be employed in writing.Unorthodox in its arroyo, subtle, and however quite insightful, Doty not only brings about compelling analysis of a smattering of writing styles, just also urges the reader to principal their individual skill of ascertainment.
On this, Doty cogently writes:
"To some degree, the art of description is the art of perception; what is required, in order to say what you run into, is enhanced attention to that looking and the more you wait, the more information y'all go….The resulting visual journey can experience intricate indeed; it makes us see the world before united states of america as equanimous not of detached things that don't touch, simply every bit a continuous realm of interconnected lines.
To be ameliorate at description, nosotros have to work at attentiveness."[ane]
Across such insight, the author incisively samples the writing of individuals such as Blake, Pound, Swenson, Shelley, Ginsberg, Cummings, et al, thoughtfully ruminating upon detail gems that these writers accept left for individuals to glean upon. Sampling such range in writing allows the reader to see a wider range of styles, each offering a varying, yet exquisite taste, all of which helps solidify the writer's repertoire.
Another betoken the Doty centers upon is what can be learned from poesy. Echoing the actions of Benjamin Franklin, who once used poesy to expand his vocabulary and writing prowess, the author notes:
"Poetry's project is to employ every aspect of linguistic communication to its maximum effectiveness, finding inside it nuances and powers we otherwise could not hear. And then the poet needs to be a supreme handler of the figurative speech we all use every day, employing language's tendency to connect like and disparate things to the richest possible effects. In poetry, figuration is at its most sophisticated; condensed, alive with meaning, pointing in multiple directions at once….It'south i of the poet's primary tools for conveying the texture of experience, and for inquiring into feel in search for significant."[2]
Such an examination aids the reader in gaining a deeper agreement of the depth and precision that may exist employed when writing verse. Coming to terms with this, i is also able to thoughtfully arroyo the fine art of writing from a more mindful perspective that allows individuals a much wider latitude from which to compose a piece.
At another juncture, Doty shares a sentiment that calls to heed Edgar Allen Poe's wondrous definition of poesy when he said, "Poetry is the rhythmical creation of dazzler in words." The author beautifully observes that:
"Every achieved verse form inscribes a perceptual signature in the world."[3]
Just equally the creative ventures of artists from time immemorial echo into the present, so will the poems of the present echo into the future, continuously leaving dashes of beauty with their very essence.
The Art Of Description is a discerning read in its entirety, that is experienced in its approach, and shrewd in its execution. If you're seeking a new writing path that will not simply be novel, simply will as well teach you how to create your very ain path, or peradventure even finetune your old ane, then begin right here.
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Footnotes:
[1] Mark Doty, The Art Of Description, p. 72.
[2] Ibid., p. 76.
[3] Ibid., p. 21.
Writer: Mark Doty
Publishing Information: St. Paul: Graywolf Books
Mark Doty, known for his descriptive and artfully provocative poesy, uses the complication of sensory details to force the reader'south mind to center on inventiveness. The short novel focuses a lot of energy towards describing the world in which we alive and how the moments where we are at a loss for words or exhale only means we are content with ourselves. The piece reads similar a guidebook for writers and how i
Book: The Art of DescriptionAuthor: Mark Doty
Publishing Data: St. Paul: Graywolf Books
Mark Doty, known for his descriptive and artfully provocative poetry, uses the complexity of sensory details to force the reader's mind to center on inventiveness. The short novel focuses a lot of free energy towards describing the world in which we alive and how the moments where we are at a loss for words or breathe only means we are content with ourselves. The piece reads like a guidebook for writers and how of import information technology is to acquire description from every possible angle before trying to understand the process of putting information technology into words. The beginning half of the book focuses on poetry defining ways in which to apply description in prose. This section of the book is very insightful because of how Mark Doty proves how impossible it is to put into words some of the most basic of man interactions or daily routines. Information technology is in this that he is able to connect the reader with the idea that a author is a creator equally much as a very observant wing on the wall.
Although the book reads as a guideline for condign a strong writer, it deserves a deeper look than it just being a college mode textbook. He breaks down his verse by looking at the root of its meaning followed by the procedure of attaching descriptions that would fill up most if not all of the senses. This fleshing-out process allows the writer to become in melody with their inner vision for their ain piece of written piece of work. However, the not-writer volition enjoy this book as well because of the key theme focusing on human interactions and how difficult it is to put life into words. He also explores the difficulties that come up when faced with the impossible task of connecting the reader with the writer'due south intent without forcing it upon them too heavily. Mark uses his poetry in this example to expand on the need for judgement structure to be inside the control the writer, and the author must empathize this in social club to command the images they are trying to create.
There are a few moments in the novel where I idea his personal opinion about having boundaries simply knowing when to intermission them confused his over-all theme. Marking's strong apply of opinion made it seem as if he forgot his readers which fabricated me almost feel inferior for not beingness able to go along up. The textbook fashion in which it reads tin can be jarring at first because of how direct the voice is, only it follows his motif of homo connection and interaction. The final result of the book kept me questioning the deed of writing and how important the connexion between writer and reader truly is. The last chapter that attaches clarification with each alphabetic character from the alphabet is but another example Mark gives as proof that clarification is in the eyes of the beholder if and only if they are smart enough to be able to describe it.
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"Beauty is not loveliness, grace, or pleasurable sights, though any of those might certainly exist part of it. For the write out to evoke the texture of feel, beauty is simply accuracy, to come as close every bit we can to what seems to be the existent. Every bit Galway Kinney writes, in mayhap the only sentence in English where the same verb repeats 3 times in a row and still makes sublime sense: 'Whatever what is is is what I want.'"
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For me, this volume was heavily geared towards poetry analysis, which wasn't of much use or interest to me personally. Might exist improve suited towards poets/poetry students, though fiction writers can find some nuggets of wisdom besides.
Read this for my artistic writing grade. Made some interesting points about description as perceived moments, and how naming lends power. The more words nosotros know, the better we understand what we run into, the better we describe.For me, this book was heavily geared towards poetry analysis, which wasn't of much employ or interest to me personally. Might be better suited towards poets/poetry students, though fiction writers can find some nuggets of wisdom also.
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The volume is curt, consisting of six chapters that have varied approaches to the subject. The first few chapters build on an idea that the art of description requires insight both into perception and into the nature of that which we become conscious. That is, ane is not trying to perfectly describe the full extent of the world that lies before one. If one did that: a.) one would fail; b.) the reader would not be granted insight into what captures the writer's eye – i.e. insight into the mind of the artist; c.) one's writing would get drudgery to read. [I recently started Yukio Mishima's "The Temple of Dawn" and he begins the first chapter with dense, wall-to-wall description of the story's Bangkok surroundings, and I plant the thicket of description was losing me. It should be noted that after that opening, the readability becomes splendid – i.eastward. very story- and character-centric.] There are certainly other issues discussed in the starting time four chapters. One idea that resonated with me was Chapter two's discussion of the importance of how we perceive fourth dimension (equally opposed to the orderly stride at which it unfolds,) and the role of temporal perception in description.
The penultimate and final capacity are quite distinct, both different from each other and from the preceding chapters. Chapter five, entitled "Four Sunflowers," presents iv poems that feature sunflowers to show how various poetic masters take on a given bailiwick. The iv poems are by William Blake, Alan Shapiro, Allan Ginsberg, and Tracy Jo Barnwell. The final chapter follows a glossary format, and is entitled, "Descriptions Alphabet." This section actually makes up nearly half of the book, and information technology considers a range of relevant topics in an ABC format. Some of these topics are discussed in more detail than others, and are of greater importance than others. Discussions that peculiarly resonated with me were ane on "Economy" versus "Excess," 1 almost metaphors, similes, and Figures of speech communication, and those on Qualifiers, Sonic quality, and Verbs. In this chapter, the writer delves into the value of common advice that is often (unfortunately) delivered in Biblical – i.due east. "thou shall" / "thousand shalt not" form. The point being that it'southward oft bad practice to follow such communication and so dogmatically.
As I said, I got a lot out of this book. It'south a quick read, but loaded with food-for-thought. I'd highly recommend it both for poets and for prose writers. (Though, as I mentioned, information technology's very much directed toward poets, e.chiliad. all of the examples come from poetry. That said, the approach to thinking about description can be of value to any writer.)
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There are certainly good lessons to take away, but they're wrapped up in such dense directions of poetry (and this books seems really only interested in poetry and poetry lonely) that this already short book feels like it has no meat on the bone that isn't one poet gushing over another.
Doty is clearly extremely intelli
I'g non familiar with the serial this book is from so perhaps all of the books have a trend to read like this-- but to me this isn't really much of an instructional guide at all.There are certainly proficient lessons to accept away, but they're wrapped upward in such dense directions of poetry (and this books seems really merely interested in poetry and poesy alone) that this already short book feels like it has no meat on the os that isn't 1 poet gushing over another.
Doty is clearly extremely intelligent and a gorgeous writer with a bully metal detector for picking out what is cute or unspeakable (and then speaks information technology) but I think a great deal of the lessons don't really even go close enough to "description" in writing. It'southward just analysis of the poems an overwhelming majority of the time. "The art of the poetic" is already a book in this series. If y'all swapped the titles you would never be able to tell that this book was supposed to exist near descriptions. To not have a single bit of prose analysis in here just seems similar a allurement and switch.
Curt and good to read if you go in hoping to learn something, anything about poetry. I'chiliad definitely interested in checking out other books in this series-- but if they're annihilation similar this I'd be very disappointed.
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For anyone who avoids poetry because: 'it'south likewise hard to sympathise so it'due south non for me'; o I wish half ratings were allowed hither because 50'd charge per unit this book four and a one-half because, though non the perfect description of description, information technology comes very close! It is one perspective, that of the author, on how to look at and what to look for in understanding verse; and, I accept made several notes to come back to equally it is that kind of book: an aide memoire to reading and understanding how poems are written.
For anyone who avoids verse because: 'it'due south too difficult to understand and then it's not for me'; or: 'I don't write poetry because I don't know how to describe what I see', should fright no more as, in this book, we are taken on a literary journey of eye-opening proportions. It is lie holding the volume up to an middle ( perhaps a fish-eye) and watching the tiny jewels come to life every bit the light plays on them. There are jewels on every page, not hidden, but like treasure marked on a map with an 'X', it is clearly seen.
On bookshelf abreast 'The Ode Less Travelled' and you have the technical detail of writing poetry, 'yoked' with this, how clarification opens up the globe with words. ...more than
A few notes...
p. 22 : What is retention just a story nearly how we have lived? In Virginia Woolf's "To the Lighthouse" it takes dozens of pages to render the inner lives of a group of people sitting effectually a dinner tabular array during a single repast; afterwards in the book, decades laissez passer in a few pages. This kind of shifting feels ac
A relatively short only academic read, focused on the craft of writing using examples from poetry. I did not discover it enthralling... however, I am non a writer, nor a student of poesy.A few notes...
p. 22 : What is retention but a story virtually how nosotros have lived? In Virginia Woolf'southward "To the Lighthouse" it takes dozens of pages to render the inner lives of a group of people sitting around a dinner table during a single meal; subsequently in the book, decades pass in a few pages. This kind of shifting feels accurate because it replicates something of our internal sense of time, where the irrelevant portions blur while significant moments groovy.
p. 25 : Looking and looking causes time to open; sustained attention allows us to tumble correct out of [forward] progression.
p. 92 : Opening stanza of "Traveling" past Malena Mörling :
Similar streetlights
however lit
by dawn,
the expressionless
stare at us
from the framed
photographs.
p. 108 : [...] the more we can name what we're seeing, the more than language we have for it, the less likely we are to destroy it.
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1. "What i seems to want in art, in experiencing it, is the same thing that is necessary for its cosmos, a self-forgetful, perfectly useless concentration" -Elizabeth Bishop (23).
2. "If nosotros had a bang-up vision and feeling of all ordinary human life . . . it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel'due south heart crush, and we should dice of that roar which lies on the other side of silence" -George Eliot (63)
3. "Verse . . . delights in the unexpected, and is out to refresh Favorite lines:
i. "What 1 seems to want in art, in experiencing it, is the same affair that is necessary for its creation, a cocky-forgetful, perfectly useless concentration" -Elizabeth Bishop (23).
ii. "If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary man life . . . information technology would exist like hearing the grass abound and the squirrel'southward middle beat, and we should dice of that roar which lies on the other side of silence" -George Eliot (63)
3. "Poetry . . . delights in the unexpected, and is out to refresh our eyes and ears. It's fine art's piece of work, every bit the Russian critic Viktor Shklovsky asserted, to defamiliarize reality" (94).
iv. "How do we say what we have seen of the suffering of others responsibly? Not to respond at all is a failure, to respond too easily a lie" (107).
v. "If I were asked to say what distinguishes an artistic temperament from any other, I'd say that it's a fundamental sense that the projection of being alive is something peculiar, little understood" (114). ...more than
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