A Study Guide for Mark Alan Doty's "The Wings"

By Gale and Cengage

A Study Guide for Mark Alan Doty's "The Wings," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Poetry for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Poetry for Students for all of your research needs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cengage Learning - Gale
• Release date: Sep 2, 2016
• ISBN: 9781535840569

Book preview

08

The Wings

Mark Doty

1993

Introduction

The American poet and memoirist Mark Doty's lyric poem The Wings was published in My Alexandria (1993), his third volume of poetry. As of 2007 it was still in print.

The Wings and the other poems in My Alexandria are informed by Doty's experiences as a homosexual man at a time when AIDS was devastating the homosexual community in general and his own personal life in particular. In 1989 Wally Roberts, Doty's partner of many years, was diagnosed with AIDS. Roberts died of a brain infection in 1994. The Wings is an elegiac poem (a poem expressing grief, usually over the death of a loved one) that reflects the themes of mortality, sorrow, loss, and memory that were to become especially pronounced in Doty's work during Roberts's illness and after his death. The poem is partly set at a Vermont auction, as Doty explains in an interview with Christopher Hennessy for the Lambda Book Report. The Wings, as its title suggests, features recurring images of angels, which in the last decade of the twentieth century became iconic figures in art, film, and literature relating to AIDS. The poem is typical of Doty's work in that its images and epiphanies are prompted by everyday experiences, its free verse form, and its conversational style widen its appeal beyond the homosexual community to a general readership. The collection in which the poem appears has won many awards and, with Doty's subsequent volume Atlantis (1995), is widely considered to be one of the most accomplished and important works to emerge from the AIDS epidemic.

Author Biography

Mark Alan Doty was born on August 10, 1953 in Maryville, Tennessee, and grew up in a succession of suburbs in Tennessee, Florida, southern California, and Arizona. His father was a civilian employee of the Army Corps of Engineers. In his memoir Firebird, Doty describes his troubled relationship with his father, and his mother's alcoholism.

While in Tucson, Arizona, a teacher at Doty's high school introduced him to the poet Richard Shelton, a mentor who encouraged his interest in literature. By the age of eighteen, Doty was confused and frightened about his sexual orientation. Soon after graduating from high school he married the poet Ruth Dawson. He earned a B.A. from Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, and by 1980, he and his wife divorced. After accepting his homosexuality, Doty moved to New York City and worked as a secretary. He then earned a master of fine arts degree in creative writing from