University of Wisconsin Press, 1992 Cloth: 978-0-299-13580-5 | eISBN: 978-0-299-13583-6 | Paper: 978-0-299-13584-3 Library of Congress Classification PS3558.O3355S93 1992 Dewey Decimal Classification 811.54
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
ABOUT THIS BOOK
Tony Hoagland captures the recognizably American landscape of a man of his generation: sex, friendship, rock and roll, cars, high optimism, and disillusion. With what Robert Pinsky has called “the saving vulgarity of American poetry,” Hoagland’s small biographies of destruction reveal that defeat is a natural prelude to grace and loss a kind of threshold to freedom.
“A remarkable book. Without any rhetorical straining, with a disarming witty directness, these poems manage to transform every subject they touch, from love to politics, reaching out from the local and the personal to place the largest issues in the context of feeling. It’s hard to think of a recent book that succeeds with equal grace in fusing the truth-telling and the lyric impulse, clarity and song, in a way that produces such consistent pleasure and surprise.”—Carl Dennis
“This is wonderful poetry: exuberant, self-assured, instinct with wisdom and passion.”—Carolyn Kizer
“There is a fine strong sense in these poems of real lives being lived in a real world. This is something I greatly prize. And it is all colored, sometimes brightly, by the poet’s own highly romantic vision of things, so that what we may think we already know ends up seeming rich and strange.”—Donald Justice
“In Sweet Ruin, we’re banging along the Baja of our little American lives, spritzing truth from our lapels, elbowing our compadres, the Seven Deadly Sins. Maybe we’re unhappy in a less than tragic way, but our ruin requires of us a love and understanding and loyalty just as deep and sweet as any tragic hero’s. And it’s all the more poignant in a sad and funny way because the purpose of this forced spiritual march, Hoagland seems to be saying, is to leave ourselves behind. Undoubtedly, you will recognize among the body count many of your selves.”—Jack Myers
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY Tony Hoagland has published three chapbooks of poetry—History of Desire, A Change in Plans, and In Gratitude for Talk—and contributed to the anthologies New American Poets of the 90’s, The Best of Crazyhorse, and The Pushcart Anthology 1991. He now lives in Waterville, Maine.
REVIEWS
Winner of the 1994 John C. Zacharis First Book Award and the 1993 Great Lakes Colleges Association New Writers Award
“There is a fine strong sense in these poems of real lives being lived in a real world. This is something I greatly prize. And it is all colored, sometimes brightly, by the poet’s own highly romantic vision of things, so that what we may think we already know ends up seeming rich and strange.”—Donald Justice
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Part 1
Perpetual Motion
Poem For Men Only
Oh Mercy
My Country
One Season
The Delay
Sweet Ruin
Proud
Part 2
Second Nature
Carnal Knowledge
The Question
A Dowry
You're The Top
Two Shades of Orange
Doing This
The Word
Volunteer
Part 3
In The Land of Lotus Eaters
The Collaboration
History of Desire
Properly
Men and Women
Travellers
Geography
A Love of Learning
Paradise
Part 4
Ducks
All Along The Watchtower
Emigration
Threshold
Safeway
Smoke
Astrology
In Gratitude For Talk
A Change In Plans
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
with an electronic file for alternative access.
Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.
University of Wisconsin Press, 1992 Cloth: 978-0-299-13580-5 eISBN: 978-0-299-13583-6 Paper: 978-0-299-13584-3
Tony Hoagland captures the recognizably American landscape of a man of his generation: sex, friendship, rock and roll, cars, high optimism, and disillusion. With what Robert Pinsky has called “the saving vulgarity of American poetry,” Hoagland’s small biographies of destruction reveal that defeat is a natural prelude to grace and loss a kind of threshold to freedom.
“A remarkable book. Without any rhetorical straining, with a disarming witty directness, these poems manage to transform every subject they touch, from love to politics, reaching out from the local and the personal to place the largest issues in the context of feeling. It’s hard to think of a recent book that succeeds with equal grace in fusing the truth-telling and the lyric impulse, clarity and song, in a way that produces such consistent pleasure and surprise.”—Carl Dennis
“This is wonderful poetry: exuberant, self-assured, instinct with wisdom and passion.”—Carolyn Kizer
“There is a fine strong sense in these poems of real lives being lived in a real world. This is something I greatly prize. And it is all colored, sometimes brightly, by the poet’s own highly romantic vision of things, so that what we may think we already know ends up seeming rich and strange.”—Donald Justice
“In Sweet Ruin, we’re banging along the Baja of our little American lives, spritzing truth from our lapels, elbowing our compadres, the Seven Deadly Sins. Maybe we’re unhappy in a less than tragic way, but our ruin requires of us a love and understanding and loyalty just as deep and sweet as any tragic hero’s. And it’s all the more poignant in a sad and funny way because the purpose of this forced spiritual march, Hoagland seems to be saying, is to leave ourselves behind. Undoubtedly, you will recognize among the body count many of your selves.”—Jack Myers
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY Tony Hoagland has published three chapbooks of poetry—History of Desire, A Change in Plans, and In Gratitude for Talk—and contributed to the anthologies New American Poets of the 90’s, The Best of Crazyhorse, and The Pushcart Anthology 1991. He now lives in Waterville, Maine.
REVIEWS
Winner of the 1994 John C. Zacharis First Book Award and the 1993 Great Lakes Colleges Association New Writers Award
“There is a fine strong sense in these poems of real lives being lived in a real world. This is something I greatly prize. And it is all colored, sometimes brightly, by the poet’s own highly romantic vision of things, so that what we may think we already know ends up seeming rich and strange.”—Donald Justice
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Part 1
Perpetual Motion
Poem For Men Only
Oh Mercy
My Country
One Season
The Delay
Sweet Ruin
Proud
Part 2
Second Nature
Carnal Knowledge
The Question
A Dowry
You're The Top
Two Shades of Orange
Doing This
The Word
Volunteer
Part 3
In The Land of Lotus Eaters
The Collaboration
History of Desire
Properly
Men and Women
Travellers
Geography
A Love of Learning
Paradise
Part 4
Ducks
All Along The Watchtower
Emigration
Threshold
Safeway
Smoke
Astrology
In Gratitude For Talk
A Change In Plans
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
with an electronic file for alternative access.
Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.
It can take 2-3 weeks for requests to be filled.
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE