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Acrimony

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One gets the picture. One has to acknowledge Michael Hofmann's likes and dislikes, specifically his dislike of himself. "Acrimony" is an apt title for this book of poems; Part 1, 25 poems mostly about Hofmann's relationships with his wife and his 'circle' blends a good deal of acrimony with measures of shame and disdain; Part 2, 19 poems about Hofmann's father, seethes with resentment and frustrated adoration. Hofmann does not present himself as a gentle bard. It's hard to imagine, after reading this collection of poems, that he would be an easy person to like or love.

The father depicted in these poems is Gert Hofmann, a German playwright and scholar who turned novelist in his later years, whose novel "The Film Explainer" his son has translated superbly. Michael Hofmann is indeed the preeminent translator of modern German literature into English. At times his translations are finer prose than the originals. Father Gert turns out to be a controversial figure in the world of German literature; just the mention of his name was enough to elicit 'acrimony' from several of my German friends, who regard him as something of an 'apologist' for the Right. My own reading of Der Kinoerzähler and Blindensturz doesn't coincide with that judgment; I liked both books very much, and I have as much scorn for the Right as anyone living. But Father Gert also has a insider's reputation for having been a disagreeable person in daily life. Son Michael portrays him as an inaccessible narcissist; here's the briefest of his poems from Part 2:

CATECHISM
My father peers into the lit sitting room
and says 'Are you here?' ... Yes, I am,
in one of his cloudy white leather armchairs,
with one foot not too disrespectfully on the table,
reading Horvath's 'Godless Youth'. Without another word,
he goes out again, baffling and incommunicable,
the invisible man, dampening any speculation.

That's not at all the best or most eloquent poem in the collection, but it reveals Michael Hofmann's 'allegiance' to the confessional mode of poetry pioneered by the American Robert Lowell and such 'students' of his as Sylvia Plath and Ann Sexton. Hofmann's 'confessions' are composed chiefly in 'stanzas' of three or four lines, unrhymed and irregular in meter. The similarity of his subject matter and his 'scansion' to Lowell's is too close to be accidental. Here's another sample:

CHANGES
Birds singing in the rain, in the dawn chorus,
on power lines. Birds knocking on the lawn,
and poor mistaken worms answering them ...

They take no thought for the morrow, not like you
in your new job. - It paid for my flowers, now
already stricken in years. The stiff cornflowers

bleach, their blue rinse grows out. The marigolds
develop a stoop and go bald, orange clowns,
straw polls, their petals coing out in fistfuls ...

hard to take you in your new professional pride -
a salary, place of work, colleagues, corporate spirit -
your new femme d'affaires haircut, hard as nails.

Say I must be repressive, afraid of castration,
loving the quest better than its fulfillment.
- What became of you, bright sparrow, featherhead?

Yes, that is an acrimonious poem to write to one's wife! But the potency of 'confessional' poetry depends on its honesty, its fearless self-exposure. Hofmann is utterly shameless in exposing his own shame, and his confessions can be profoundly moving, once the reader identifies the 'persona' and gets the hang of hearing the 'universals' hidden in the seemingly 'personals' of the poems. Hofmann is not, however, as universal or as iconic as Lowell, though possibly a British reader might find him so. Lowell's unique identity as the heir of America's most exceptional intellectual dynasty always resonated in his confessions; every Lowell poem was as much about America as about himself. And Hofmann's language, though very colorful and well-wrought, lacks the epigrammatic memorability of Lowell's and the hysterically-pitched intensity of Plath's. I will tap out a typical Lowell poem as a comment to this review, just for comparison.

Like all decent poetry, Hofmann's pieces may seem opaque at first reading, then burst into 'meaning' on closer acquaintance. Shall I confess that I didn't like them much when I read straight through this slender book? But reading them a second time, I've found them painfully good.