Volume 43, Number 4 · February 29, 1996
On the Frontier
By James Fenton
BOOKS BY MARK DOTY
Atlantis
by Mark Doty
HarperCollins, 103 pp., $22.00; $11.00 (paper)
My Alexandria
by Mark Doty
University of Illinois Press, 62 pp., $10.95 (paper)
Bethlehem in Broad Daylight
by Mark Doty
Godine, 76 pp., $10.95 (paper)
Turtle, Swan
by Mark Doty
Godine, 74 pp., (out of print)
On January 15 this year, Valerie Eliot presented the third annual T.S. Eliot prize to the American poet Mark Doty for his collection My Alexandria. The previous two winners, Ciaran Carson and Paul Muldoon, were from Northern Ireland, and many a British poet will be wondering when his turn will come. The fact is that several London literary prizes have an international definition of their scope of contestant. The Booker Prize for fiction defines its 'community' as being any English-language novelist except the Americans. This may sound unfair but is probably practical. It also reflects, co-incidentally, a legal definition found in literary contracts, which often include all the major English-speaking countries except the US.
Review, 1909 words
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