The word on the street in Tacoma this week is, well, words. Celebrated American writer, poet, and memoirist Mark Doty will be sharing his words of wisdom, reading poetry and signing books at Pacific Lutheran University on Tuesday, Feb. 26 at 8 p.m. in the Lagerquist Concert Hall.



“Mark Doty is one of the most important American poets alive,” says Rick Barot, assistant professor of English at PLU and one of the program coordinators for PLU’s Visiting Writers Series. “Doty’s writing is a rich, important body of work, with wide public appeal. He is reader-friendly — people can really access his writing. It’s not just for academics. He is also a huge gay icon. A great poet in his own right, Doty is also an important voice on gay matters. He’s really given a voice to the gay experience.”



Doty’s latest book, Dog Years: A Memoir, was published in 2007 (HarperCollins). It is a “meditative narrative about dogs, love, time, memory, and hope.” Also, a new volume of his poetry, Fire to Fire: New and Selected Poems (HarperCollins), is slated for release in March. He is the only American poet to have received the United Kingdom’s T.S. Eliot Prize. Doty’s poetry has appeared in numerous journals and magazines including the Atlantic Monthly, the London Review of Books, Ploughshares, Poetry, and the New Yorker. He is the recipient of the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, a Whiting Writers Award, two Lambda Literary Awards and the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for First Nonfiction.

Appearing by invitation on behalf of the college’s annual Visiting Writers Series, Doty joins a roster of great authors coming to town to include poet Mary Oliver, fiction writer Tony D’Souza and many more for the series’ 2008 calendar line-up of talent. The author will also be available Feb. 26 at 5 p.m. at the Garfield Book Company at PLU for a more intimate fireside chat. There, Doty will sit among readers and take questions. “This event will give people the chance to actually talk to the author,” states Barot.



[Lagerquist Concert Hall, Tuesday, Feb. 26, 8 p.m., no cover, Pacific Lutheran University, Wheeler Street South and Eighth Avenue South, Tacoma, www.plu.edu/~english/vws/index.html]