Bethlehem In Broad Daylight

A collection of poems by Mark Doty.

The selected early poems by Mark Doty including the complete texts of Turtle, Swan and Bethlehem in Broad Daylight for which Mr. Doty has contributed a new introduction.

Back when they were both very young, Godine had the honour of publishing the first two poetry books of Mark Doty, who has since gone on to considerable and deserved fame and fortune, winning the National Book Award for Poetry in 2008, as well as honours from the National Book Critics Circle, the LA Times Book Prize, a Whiting Award, and (as the first American in its history) the T. S. Eliot Prize. Here, reset and containing almost two dozen poems that appeared in small magazines but have never before been collected, are the complete texts of TURTLE, SWAN AND BETHLEHEM IN BROAD DAYLIGHT to which Doty has contributed a new introduction. Essentially a new book, and important both for its history and its new inclusions.

Exploring the facts behind the most famous celestial object in history

"[Bethlehem] brings within reach 11,000 years of history, centering on the beloved town's unique place in the world. Blincoe's love of Bethlehem is compelling, even as he does not shy away from the complexities of its chronicle." -- President Jimmy Carter Bethlehem is so suffused with history and myth that it feels like an unreal city even to those who call it home. For many, Bethlehem remains the little town at the edge of the desert described in Biblical accounts. Today, the city is hemmed in by a wall and surrounded by forty-one Israeli settlements and hostile settlers and soldiers. Nicholas Blincoe tells the town's history through the visceral experience of living there, taking readers through its stone streets and desert wadis, its monasteries, aqueducts, and orchards to show the city from every angle and era. His portrait of Bethlehem sheds light on one of the world's most intractable political problems, and he maintains that if the long thread winding back to the city's ancient past is severed, the chances of an end to the Palestine-Israel conflict will be lost with it.

“Fire to Fire should solidify Doty’s position as a star of contemporary American poetry. . . . The poems combine close attention to the fragile, contingent things of the world with the constant, almost unavoidable chance of transcendence.” — Publishers Weekly A landmark collection of new and published works by one of our finest poets that is a testament to the clarity and thoughtful lyricism of his poems Fire to Fire collects the best works from seven books of poetry by Mark Doty, acclaimed poet and New York Times bestselling author of two memoirs, Firebird and Dog Years. Doty’s subjects—our mortal situation, the evanescent beauty of the world, desire’s transformative power, and art’s ability to give shape to human lives—echo and develop across twenty years of poems. His signature style encompasses both the plainspoken and the artfully wrought; here one of contemporary American poetry’s most lauded, recognizable voices speaks to the crises and possibilities of our times.

A book about mortality, the mortal weight of AIDS in particular.

Tracing the possible origins of the Magi's star, the author uses an ancient Roman coin as a starting point to investigate the possibility that the legendary star may in fact have been an eclipse of Jupiter and the star Aries.