Doughty, Mark

Personal life

Born August 10, 1953 in Maryville, Tennessee ^[1] , in the family of Lawrence and Ruth Doughty. Besides him, his parents had an older daughter, Sarah Alice. He graduated from Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, with a Bachelor of Arts. Then, at Goddard College in Planfield, Vermont, received a master's degree in fine arts in literary mastery ^[2] .

Mark Doughty is an open - minded homosexual . From 1995 to 2010, he was in a relationship with the writer . In 2008, they were married, but divorced in 2013. Doughty currently lives with his second husband, Alexander Hadel, in New York and Springs Village near East Hampton, New York. The couple married in October 2015 in the Muir Forest National Reserve ^[3] .

Creative activity

Doughty's first collection of poems, The Turtle, the Swan, was published by David R. Godin in 1987. The second collection of Bethlehem in broad daylight was published by the same publisher in 1991. The “booklet” described these verses as “quiet, intimate” and praised the poet’s original style, translating the extensive urban experience into “an example of how we live, how we suffer and overcome suffering” ^[4] .

The poem Tiara by Doughty was published in 1990 in the collection Poets for Life. 76 poets respond to AIDS. ” This poem criticizes how society perceives and treats homosexual people with AIDS. The 1980s marked the beginning of the AIDS epidemic in the United States. The late actions of the Reagan administration to combat the disease have led to the deaths of thousands of people, especially among young homosexuals. Some believe that the initial reluctance to fight the epidemic was caused by homophobia. This poem criticizes the idea that homosexuals themselves are to blame for having AIDS. The poet's poems, contrasted with a hostile climate towards people living with HIV, served as a last comfort.

Doughty's third poetic collection, “My Alexandria,” published in 1993 by the University of Illinois, reflects the sorrow, perception, and new awareness gained in the face of a great and painful loss. In 1989, poet Wally Roberts' partner was diagnosed with HIV. The compilation, written when Roberts was not yet sick, examines the prospect of mortality, desperately trying to find some way to make the prospect of loss even momentarily bearable. My Alexandria was selected for the National Poetry Award by Philip Levine and won the National Circle of Critics Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Award. When the book was published in the UK by Jonathan Cape, Doughty became the first American poet to receive the Thomas Sterns Eliot Prize, Britain's most significant annual poetry award. His collection Atlantis was published in 1995, one year after Roberts' death. The book received Bingham's Poetry Award and Ambassadorial Book Award.

Doughty taught at the University of Iowa, Princeton University, Sarah Lawrence College, Columbia University, Cornell, and New York University. He has been a professor at the graduate school of Houston University for ten years, and is currently a professor emeritus and resident in the English language department at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. In 2013, he was a member of the jury of the Griffin poetry contest. In 2011, Doughty was elected chancellor of the Academy of American Poets.

Poetic collections

• "Turtle, Swan" ( English Turtle, Swan , 1987).
• “Bethlehem in broad daylight” ( English Bethlehem in Broad Daylight , 1991).
• “My Alexandria. Poems ”( eng. My Alexandria: Poems , 1993).
• Atlantis ( Eng. Atlantis , 1995).
• “Sweet Machine” ( Eng. Sweet Machine , 1998).
• “Murano. Poem "( Eng. Murano: Poem , 2000).
• "Source" ( English Source , 2001).
• "School of the Arts" ( Eng. School of the Arts , 2005).
• “ Fire to Fire: New and Selected Poems ” ( Eng. Fire to Fire: New and Selected Poems , 2008).
• “Theories and Appearances” ( Eng. Theories and Apparitions , 2008).
• "Paragon Park" ( Eng. Paragon Park , 2012).
• “Swarm, Pack, Host” ( Eng. A Swarm, A Flock, A Host , 2013).
• Deep Lane. Poems ”( eng. Deep Lane: Poems , 2015).

Memoirs

• "Heavenly Coast" ( English Heaven's Coast , 1996).
• "Firebird. Memoirs ”( Eng. Firebird: A Memoir , 1999).
• “Dog Years” ( English Dog Years , 2007).

• 1992 National Poetry Award.
• Circle of Critics National Award 1993.
• Los Angeles Times Book Award for 1993 Poetry.
• 1994 Guggenheim Scholarship for the Humanities
• 1994 Whiting Award.
• 1995 Eliot Award.
• Literary Prize for Gay Poetry "Lambda" 1995, 2001, 2008.
• PEN Prize / Martha Albrand 1997.
• 1999 Lila Wallace Reader Writers Award.
• The 2007 Lambda Literary Award for Gay Memoirs.
• Stonewall Book Award 2008.
• 2008 National Book Award for Poetry.
• 2018 Robert Creeley Award.