Rating: 
Summary: This Book Is a Must Read
Review: FIREBIRD is one of those books that draws in the reader and holds his/her attention. The reader is at once morbidly fascinated and horrified by the author's life experiences. The author writes about his life without self-pity or a plea for sympathy. That he had the strength to survive all he has endured in the first half of his life is inpsirational. I am proud to have known Mark Doty for two brief school years in the late sixties. Thirty-five years later Mark Doty continues to impact my life.
Rating:
Summary: This Book Is a Must Read
Review: FIREBIRD is one of those books that draws in the reader and holds his/her attention. The reader is at once morbidly fascinated and horrified by the author's life experiences. The author writes about his life without self-pity or a plea for sympathy. That he had the strength to survive all he has endured in the first half of his life is inpsirational. I am proud to have known Mark Doty for two brief school years in the late sixties. Thirty-five years later Mark Doty continues to impact my life.
Rating:
Summary: We voted Mark Doty "Most Likely to Succeed"
Review: For several years I had read favorable reviews of Mark Doty's work and wondered if this writer was "that Mark Doty"--the smartest boy in my junior high school, the one we voted "Most Likely to Succeed."My curiosity got the better of me when Firebird was released, since it is autobiographical, and yes, it is that Mark Doty. Those junior high years were but a blip on the screen of Mark's life (chapter seven), but his memories and descriptions of the place and the same people I knew are spot on. This book, however, is so much more than a snippet of shared history. There is nothing I could say about this book that would accurately describe its impact on me--all of my words would be an understatement. Mark Doty's work is fine art. His prose and the structure work beautifully together. This is not another package of self-pity in which the author is intentionally pulling up emotions. Yes, I cringed and felt outrage at some of the most uncomfortable parts, but the writer soothed me and reassured me that where there is art, there is a home, a place in the world--like that which Petula Clark sings about in "Downtown." I am proud of and pleased for Mark Doty's outstanding literary achievements. I also thank him for having the courage to write this book. Many of us who are fortunate enough to have read it are grateful and forever changed through the experience of his work of art. I recommend it to anyone who is gay, straight, or undecided.
Rating:
Summary: We voted Mark Doty "Most Likely to Succeed"
Review: For several years I had read favorable reviews of Mark Doty's work and wondered if this writer was "that Mark Doty"--the smartest boy in my junior high school, the one we voted "Most Likely to Succeed." My curiosity got the better of me when Firebird was released, since it is autobiographical, and yes, it is that Mark Doty. Those junior high years were but a blip on the screen of Mark's life (chapter seven), but his memories and descriptions of the place and the same people I knew are spot on. This book, however, is so much more than a snippet of shared history. There is nothing I could say about this book that would accurately describe its impact on me--all of my words would be an understatement. Mark Doty's work is fine art. His prose and the structure work beautifully together. This is not another package of self-pity in which the author is intentionally pulling up emotions. Yes, I cringed and felt outrage at some of the most uncomfortable parts, but the writer soothed me and reassured me that where there is art, there is a home, a place in the world--like that which Petula Clark sings about in "Downtown." I am proud of and pleased for Mark Doty's outstanding literary achievements. I also thank him for having the courage to write this book. Many of us who are fortunate enough to have read it are grateful and forever changed through the experience of his work of art. I recommend it to anyone who is gay, straight, or undecided.
Rating:
Summary: poignant and touching
Review: Having grown up as a "sensitive" boy in the South (like the author), I could really relate to this book. Doty relates his experience with such vivid images and beautiful descriptions that the work goes far beyond the mere recording of events. As a poet, he isn't always comfortable with narrative structure but he does create a wonderful story that is rich in flavor and color.
Rating:
Summary: poignant and touching
Review: Having grown up as a "sensitive" boy in the South (like the author), I could really relate to this book. Doty relates his experience with such vivid images and beautiful descriptions that the work goes far beyond the mere recording of events. As a poet, he isn't always comfortable with narrative structure but he does create a wonderful story that is rich in flavor and color.
Rating:
Summary: Great Book
Review: I bought this book with a cynical heart; I loved Bernard Cooper's _Truth Serum_ memoirs so much that I was pretty sure all other coming of gay-age autobiography would be inferior in comparison. I'm happy to have been wrong. I thought _Firebird_ was wise and unpretentious, articulate and clear: it works for all the same reasons _TS_ succeeded. It is a very well-written book by a thoughtful writer.
Rating:
Summary: Great Book
Review: I bought this book with a cynical heart; I loved Bernard Cooper's _Truth Serum_ memoirs so much that I was pretty sure all other coming of gay-age autobiography would be inferior in comparison. I'm happy to have been wrong. I thought _Firebird_ was wise and unpretentious, articulate and clear: it works for all the same reasons _TS_ succeeded. It is a very well-written book by a thoughtful writer.
Rating:
Summary: Mark Doty's FIREBIRD: The Beautiful Sadness of Childhood
Review: In his memoir, Mark Doty says, "The older I get, the more I distrust redemption; it isn't in the power of language to repair the damages." Though I agree with Doty's thought-prevoking statement, I would also venture to say that the power of this book, though it does not attempt to sugar-coat the past, does make of what is difficult a thing of beauty. Poet Mark Doty has a uniquely adept ability to find beauty in the most tragic of events, not in a way that minimizes, but ironically, in a way that points them up even more clearly. For it is those events that shape us, Doty says, like it or not, and we cannot run from them, we can only claim them. This memoir is brave and honest, profound and wise, beautifully and powerfully written. I believe my life more rich for having read it.
Rating:
Summary: Mark Doty's FIREBIRD: The Beautiful Sadness of Childhood
Review: In his memoir, Mark Doty says, "The older I get, the more I distrust redemption; it isn't in the power of language to repair the damages." Though I agree with Doty's thought-prevoking statement, I would also venture to say that the power of this book, though it does not attempt to sugar-coat the past, does make of what is difficult a thing of beauty. Poet Mark Doty has a uniquely adept ability to find beauty in the most tragic of events, not in a way that minimizes, but ironically, in a way that points them up even more clearly. For it is those events that shape us, Doty says, like it or not, and we cannot run from them, we can only claim them. This memoir is brave and honest, profound and wise, beautifully and powerfully written. I believe my life more rich for having read it.
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