2011 Book #89: THE ART OF DESCRIPTION by Mark Doty

If I were asked to say what distinguishes an artistic temperment from any other, I'd say that it's a fundamental sense that the project of being alive is something peculiar, little understood. I've always felt amazed by—a bit envious of—people who take their lives for granted, who feel that of course this (this body, this community, this set of human laws and social expectations) is the way things should be, how could it be otherwise?

But to believe that the world is queer, or that oneself is, or both, is a window of doubt through which all creative possibility comes into being...

In this American moment, it's fundamentally queer to be interested in what can't be packed or sold in the marketplace, queer to enjoy the fundamentally useless, contemplative pleasure of poetry. Queer means that which is not business as usual, not solid identities founded on firm grounds, but a world in question.

—from The Art of Description by Mark Doty