With his rhapsodic inclusiveness, Doty performs a kind of meditation through which the wounds of memory are healed. In many of his poems, the meditation blooms from the spirit of his narrative, appearing often in what seems like an extended addenda—or cadenza—to the poem. The tone of these meditations is thoughtful, almost essay-like, enfolding the poem in a membrane of sensuous exposition. In a lesser poet, this exposition might intrude on the poem, might seem like an apology for what the more dramatic parts of the poem fail to offer. But Doty employs these to distance the principal event of the poem, to invest the event with a mysterious sensuousness afforded him through the shimmer of memory.

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From Tony Whedon, "Let Me Go, If I Have to, In Brilliance," Poetry East, no.35 (1993), pp. 160-61.