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blurstoftimes's review against another edition
4.0
Regardless of your position in the literary world, reading this will make you a better writer. Doty takes on the seemingly impossible task of writing about the explication of description, but he succeeds remarkably well at breaking the bones of poetry into jagged puzzles pieces that readers will be challenged to affix themselves. All in all, this is a deftly written and massively informative text on championed poetry, the power imbued in the writing of it, and a loving tribute to its conduit existence in our culture and, if applicable to the reader, authorship.
robynearhart's review against another edition
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
fast-paced
3.75
tctas2024's review against another edition
2.0
Some interesting artistic styles to consider, and some great lines in here, but the language felt almost pretentious. Of course, the book is specifically about the words we use to describe what we see, or our consciousness, but it felt like a thesaurus was consulted unnecessarily for a majority of the contemplation.
annevoi's review against another edition
4.0
I am a big fan of Mark Doty, and this book only added to my appreciation. It's not meant as an instruction manual, but as a way of gaining insight into how poetry is made, how the world can be perceived, how we inevitably miss so much as we try to make sense of things, using words. Doty himself is, I believe, a sensualist, and a seeker, so the task of turning the world into words is right up his alley. I enjoyed his analysis of Elizabeth Bishop's "The Fish," of the four sunflower poems (Blake, Alan Shapiro, Alan Ginsburg, and Tracy Jo Barnwell), of Pound's "In the Station of the Metro." The final abecedarian started to feel a bit forced (and where was Z, anyway?), but actually, no: each entry rendered up some nugget to chew on. I love Mark Doty, and am so glad I've had a couple of chances to study with him.
donasbooks's review against another edition
2.0
The language was lovely but the takeaway was very slight. I hesitate to call this a craft manual. It was more of a meditation on the element of description.
*Update July 2020:
As you can see, this book left me a bit speechless when I read it a year ago. I still think there's not much to say for it, as the expression goes, but I'm inclined to give you a bit more information this time around.
The Art of Description is one of a series of volumes, each written by a different master of the craft. I've read others of this series, so I know to expect them to be both beautiful and useful. In Joan Silber's [b:The Art of Time in Fiction: As Long as It Takes|6478867|The Art of Time in Fiction As Long as It Takes|Joan Silber|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1312028907l/6478867._SX50_.jpg|6670083], for example, her discussion of the topic possessed such clarity I was often able to copy passages into my notebook and use the text as a writing exercise in fictional time. And we all know how experimental the element of time can get in fiction.
I didn't find this clarity in Doty's volume, which I felt he designed as a trial by fire, of sorts. Or maybe he intended to teach us by example. As though he couldn't possible teach in a direct way such a wild thing as description. But either way, I felt myself muddling through the text in certain sections, on both readings.
I think this book is probably best summed up in a brief description of the "Description's Alphabet," which is a collection of twenty-six topics that seem to conform, most of the time, in some rough way, to the letters of the alphabet. But I'm not sure how some of these topics relate to description, maybe you can tell me -- contour drawing? gesture drawings? incomplete (wtf?)? moon?
To me, it's obvious Doty wanted to exercise this form for this project, and he did it. For more than half the book. Hey, forms are fun. I like them too. But it wasn't an appropriate form for a writing instructional text and it rendered the thing unusable as such. All I got from this book is some pretty one-liners about description that I might be able to use for my Instagram posts. But maybe not, because Doty's kind of esoteric and long-winded, after all.
Only read this if you want to read some pretty language about language; the other books in the series are better and there are better books that can teach you about description. Try Ron Rozelle's [b:Description & Setting|875944|Description & Setting|Ron Rozelle|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1408310121l/875944._SY75_.jpg|861287]; I found it much more useful.
Stay safe out there fellow creatives; don't forget your masks and your hands! Stay bookish, stay resilient <3
*Update July 2020:
As you can see, this book left me a bit speechless when I read it a year ago. I still think there's not much to say for it, as the expression goes, but I'm inclined to give you a bit more information this time around.
The Art of Description is one of a series of volumes, each written by a different master of the craft. I've read others of this series, so I know to expect them to be both beautiful and useful. In Joan Silber's [b:The Art of Time in Fiction: As Long as It Takes|6478867|The Art of Time in Fiction As Long as It Takes|Joan Silber|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1312028907l/6478867._SX50_.jpg|6670083], for example, her discussion of the topic possessed such clarity I was often able to copy passages into my notebook and use the text as a writing exercise in fictional time. And we all know how experimental the element of time can get in fiction.
I didn't find this clarity in Doty's volume, which I felt he designed as a trial by fire, of sorts. Or maybe he intended to teach us by example. As though he couldn't possible teach in a direct way such a wild thing as description. But either way, I felt myself muddling through the text in certain sections, on both readings.
I think this book is probably best summed up in a brief description of the "Description's Alphabet," which is a collection of twenty-six topics that seem to conform, most of the time, in some rough way, to the letters of the alphabet. But I'm not sure how some of these topics relate to description, maybe you can tell me -- contour drawing? gesture drawings? incomplete (wtf?)? moon?
To me, it's obvious Doty wanted to exercise this form for this project, and he did it. For more than half the book. Hey, forms are fun. I like them too. But it wasn't an appropriate form for a writing instructional text and it rendered the thing unusable as such. All I got from this book is some pretty one-liners about description that I might be able to use for my Instagram posts. But maybe not, because Doty's kind of esoteric and long-winded, after all.
Only read this if you want to read some pretty language about language; the other books in the series are better and there are better books that can teach you about description. Try Ron Rozelle's [b:Description & Setting|875944|Description & Setting|Ron Rozelle|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1408310121l/875944._SY75_.jpg|861287]; I found it much more useful.
Stay safe out there fellow creatives; don't forget your masks and your hands! Stay bookish, stay resilient <3
lucas_madden's review against another edition
3.0
I was feeling nerdy about writing craft and literary criticism with this one.
efjens's review against another edition
5.0
I sometimes have a hard time rating craft books. Sometimes they're useful but dry to read. Sometimes they read well, but aren't that insightful. This one is both useful and gorgeously written. I honestly underlined at least half of it. Craft-book gold!
keight's review against another edition
3.0
This book wasn’t what I expected, being focused entirely on examples of descriptions in poems while I expected some bit of prose. I was hoping to be as bowled over by this book as Doty’s Still Life with Oysters and Lemon, but these books are nothing like each other. Plus not a lot of poetry referenced were writers that I particularly enjoy. But I did enjoy the analysis of Elizabeth Bishop’s Fish poem.