Mark Doty’s ninth book of poetry weaves together ruminations on a full life without making it seem as if his writing is the perfect, completing factor. Some of the themes he covers are death, the finding and keeping of love, nature, and the worthwhileness of living. But while Doty might be expected to be an authority by now, he instead gives an honest take on what he still does not know. In Deep Lane, the experienced poet does not put on an air of control, guiding the process along, but instead journeys with the reader.
The poems that share the name of the collection are a series that appear throughout the book. Nine in total, Doty uses them as a groundwork for commenting on both the nature of his life and the world. From the fourth “Deep Lane” poem, he questions the dualistic nature of creation. “Into Eden came the ticks, / princes of this world, / heat-seeking, tiny, multitudinous / -Lord, why have you given them / a heart, a nervous system, a lit microchip /of a-brain, is it?-if not to invite Manicheanism;” His preoccupation with light and darkness is threaded throughout Deep Lane, mostly in connection to discovering what it means to create for oneself in this beautiful and terrifying world. In “Immanence,” the speaker, driving on the upper level of the George Washington Bridge declares that “I act as though I am brave, because / I understand that it’s beautiful up here, / shockingly so, April pouring its gold / over the gathered Hudson…” The attractiveness he knows is able to give way to terror, or he can embrace his fear and allow it to guide him toward an unrealized beauty. Doty’s struggle with his own path invites the reader to take stock of where they are on their own.
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The tension between intentionality and the natural order in one’s course in life is both foreshadowed and amplified after reading the epigraphs by Ralph Waldo Emerson and Mark Twain. Emerson begins, As the traveler who has lost his way throws his reins on his horse’s neck, and trusts to the instincts of the animal to find his road, so must we do with the divine animal who carries us through this world. Doty could have let Emerson and the reader remain in hopeful expectation, but immediately follows it with Twain’s All right then, I’ll go to Hell. In the penultimate poem, “Spent,” the speaker locks himself out of his house twice in one day.” Am I at home in this house, / would I prefer to be out here, / where I could be almost anyone? / This time it’s simpler: the window-frame, / the radiator, my descent. Born twice / in one day!” A portrait is painted of a man who has worked so hard for everything, and everything has its’ right place. Viewing one’s life from the outside is very different, however. Who can say whether he, or anyone else, would have made the same calculations. Perhaps letting things come instead of running to them is how one finds their own rightful place. Perhaps not. Deep Lane does not offer a definitive answer, only more speculation revealed from Doty’s truthful and watchful speakers.
And one of the most dominant mediums through which this questioning is explored is his treatment of the natural world. Dogs, goats, and mammoths all make appearances, where they are praised for having no need to justify themselves to other beings. Even engaging in activities that are menial, or even comical, they possess a quiet dignity that humans can only aspire to, and consequently, which Doty achieves in this book. The sea lions in “Perfect Repose,” are “asleep: simultaneous, / intimate, soft plosive, a little wet, / and though one coughs now and then / -water in the nose?- / the single thing they make of many, / still and always moving,…” Observing from an unnamed location, the speaker describes them wistfully, lamenting his inability to also be unified, purposeful yet peaceful. However, Deep Lane is also full of darker depictions of the world surrounding Doty to counterbalance this inspiring scene. From the poem “To Jackson Pollock,” he reveals the life that can be found in death as well; “…just days ago we’d taken refreshment in the crisp and / particular shade / of that young ginkgo’s tight leaves, its beauty and optimism, / though I didn’t think of that word until the snapped trunk / this morning.” Chaos and destruction are intertwined, but through this inevitable process of life, beauty can still emerge.
Doty treats death as the active watcher, neither benevolent nor evil, just one who takes part with the journeyers as well as waits for them. The past will inform the way, maybe even through apparitions of a father, mother in snake-form, or a “recalcitrant old boho” named Dugan, but it should not dictate the course. Death may be the end of the journey in Deep Lane, but it is the continuous climbing, searching, and rerouting on the way there that makes life worthwhile.
