SOURCE: Gladstone, Jim. “Metameringue.” Lambda Book Report 9, no. 9 (April 2001): 15.

In the following review, Gladstone offers praise for Still Life with Oysters and Lemon and Murano.

What are the ingredients of Art? To Jan Davidsz de Heem, the 17th Century Dutch painter whose Still Life with Oysters and Lemon lends both title and inspiration to Mark Doty's slim yet infinitely rereadable new volume of prose poetry, one recipe begins with citrus, crustaceans, clustered grapes, a glass urn.

To these, de Heem adds oils, pigments, canvas, bristles pulled from a pig's proboscis. And through the alchemical cookery of light and vision and emotional resonance, he transforms them into something altogether different than themselves.

Start from an egg, arrive at a meringue. Or, start from a painting, arrive at a poem.

De Heem's painted lemon peel uncurls in Mark Doty's mind. The whole painting becomes but one compound ingredient, to which...