“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
“Mark Doty still finds wonder in a world of confusion and hardships. Beauty is the object of worship in FIRE TO FIRE, this much needed book of new and selected older poems…The new poems speak from a passionate middle age…Doty takes us with him on his journeys from the everyday to the ecstatic.” — Craig Morgan Teicher, Time Out New York
“[Doty] uses language as a way to highlight a moment, elevate it, and unearth hidden depth and meaning. . . . Striking imagery and a powerful imagination are two of his best tools.” — Christian Science Monitor
“Doty is always searching for beauty in a world that can be tragic or simply mundane.” — Newsday
“Showcases Doty’s abiding fondness for examining the human condition” — Washington Post Book World
“Doty displays a gift for interweaving arresting image with tender narrative.” — Slate
“Doty’s facility with his chosen form...is so natural that the craft in his work is all but invisible; he makes the damnably difficult look deceptively simple.” — Booklist
“If words this moving do not constitute great poetry, I’d like to know what does.” — Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
“Doty is terrifically precise as he inspects time’s wreckage. . . . The rhythm of his lines, its syntactical genius, propels us down the page, stopping time when necessary, making the familiar. . . exotic.” — Dallas Morning News