Poet and memoirist Mark Doty will give a public reading and discuss his work Thursday, April 12, at Cornell College. The program begins at 7:30 p.m. in Kimmel Theatre. Admission is free. Doty is appearing as Cornell's Richard Williams Visiting Writer.

Doty has served as an important voice for the gay community and AIDS awareness. He is the author of seven books of poems, including "School of the Arts," "Source," "Sweet Machine," "Atlantis" and "My Alexandria." His poetry has appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, The New Yorker and collections including the Norton Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry.

His nonfiction works are "Still Life with Oysters and Lemon," "Heaven's Coast" and "Firebird." His latest memoir, "Dog Years," details the complex relationships with two dogs as he deals with his partner's struggle with AIDS, writing, teaching and renovating a 200-year-old house.

His numerous awards include a National Book Critics Circle Award, Los Angeles Times Book Prize, Whiting Writers Award and two Lambda Literary Awards. He is the only American poet awarded the United Kingdom's T.S. Eliot Prize. He has received fellowships from the Guggenheim, Ingram Merrill and Lila Wallace/Reader's Digest foundations and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Doty lives in New York City and Houston, where he is John and Rebecca Moores Professor in the graduate program at the University of Houston.