Mark Doty Opens Calliope's 9th Season

Renowned Author of Poetry and Prose, Mark Doty to Launch New Season of Calliope Poetry Series

National Book Award–winning poet Mark Doty, praised by the New York Times for his “dazzling, tactile grasp of the world,” will read from his latest book, Deep Lane, on Sept. 13 to launch the ninth season of the Calliope Poetry Series. The event—which will also feature Lorna Knowles Blake, an award-winning poet who teaches creative writing in Brewster and New Orleans—will take place from 3 to 5 p.m. at the West Falmouth Library.

Deep Lane (W.W. Norton, 2015) is described by its publisher as “a book of descents: into the earth beneath the garden, into the dark substrata of a life. But these poems seek repair, finally, through the possibilities that sustain the speaker above ground: art and ardor, animals and gardens, the pleasure of seeing, the world tuned by the word.” Mark Doty’s other books include Fire to Fire: New and Selected Poems (2008), which won the National Book Award, and My Alexandria (1993), which received the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award.

The only American poet to win Great Britain’s T.S. Eliot Prize, Doty received two NEA fellowships, Guggenheim and Rockefeller Foundation Fellowships, a Lila Wallace/Reader’s Digest Award, and the Witner Byner Prize. In 2011, he was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. Doty is the author of three memoirs: the bestselling Dog Years, Firebird, and Heaven’s Coast. He is currently at work on a fourth memoir, What Is the Grass, that centers on his relationship with Walt Whitman.

Lorna Knowles Blake was born in Havana, Cuba and spent her childhood in Argentina, Uruguay, Venezuela, and Puerto Rico before coming to the United States for college.  Her collection of poems, Permanent Address, won the Richard Snyder Memorial Award from Ashland University Press.  Work from a new collection has appeared or is forthcoming in The Cortland Review, Literary Imagination, Tampa Review and the Hudson Review. She serves on the editorial board at the journal Barrow Street and divides her time between Cape Cod and New Orleans, where she teaches at the Walker Percy Writing Institute at Loyola University.

This Calliope reading is offered in collaboration with the West Falmouth Library. Tickets for the event cost $25 and can be purchased through Calliope’s website, calliopepoetryseries.com or by check, made out to Calliope, c/o Alice Kociemba, P.O. Box 957, West Falmouth, MA  02574. Please include a contact email or phone so your reservation can be confirmed.

Founded in January 2008 by Alice Kociemba, the Calliope Poetry Series seeks to foster and celebrate community through a shared appreciation of poetry. The readings have featured both well-known and emerging poets, and have also include an open mike for local poets. For more information about upcoming events, go to calliopepoetryseries.com.