American poet and memoirist. Doty was born in Maryville, Tennessee, and educated at Drake University and Goddard College. The only American recipient of Britain's T. S. Eliot Prize for poetry, Doty has published nine collections; his volume Fire to Fire: New and Selected Poems won the National Book Award for Poetry in 2008. Nearly as prolific in prose as in verse, Doty has published five works of nonfiction, including the memoir Firebird (1999), which recalls his childhood in the South and in Arizona. In 1989 Doty's life was profoundly altered when his partner, Wally Roberts, was diagnosed with AIDS, the subject of Doty's memoir Heaven's Coast (1996); Roberts's death in 1994 is recounted in a third memoir, the bestselling Dog Years (2007). Presently Doty lives in New York City and teaches at Rutgers University. See also markdoty.org.