Customer Reviews

Sweet Ruin (Brittingham Prize in Poetry)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Tony Hoagland's poems are accessible. There is nothing arcane to decipher unwillingly, no unnatural stretch for depth. The depth is there already. This is the poetry that I grew to love, when I first began reading contemporary poets back in the 70's. Robert Pinsky, Alan Dugan, Robert Bly, A.R.Ammons and others were on my shelf long before Tony Hoagland had published. And I think Hoagland's poems owe something to those writers. But his take on the art is his own and it is by far the more colloquial. The image is instant, the emotion is shared completely, the words make tangible record in the reader's mind. And the effect often is startling. My favorite poem in the book is called 'Safeway.' I read this poem in an issue of Ploughshares some years ago and thought it so wonderful that I subscribed to that pushcart, only later to find that not all its material affects me as that one poem does and always will. When I purchased 'Sweet Ruin' I expected to find at least a few poems not to my liking. But mirabile dictu! Every poem is as striking and enjoyable as 'Safeway.' Polished without seeming to have been, sounding as though they were written on bar napkins and never revised, glib and facile and beautifully inspired, 'Sweet Ruin' is one of those books you will reread ad infinitum, never knowing when you're finished.

From the beginning of poetry, from the beginnings of Greek and Roman poems, poetry has striven to be both dulce et utile---pleasant and useful. Tony Hoagland is a poet who captures both of those aspects of poetry, and effortlessly so. Not a single word goes to waste, as he describes situations familiar to almost any audience, while making them sound extraordinary and worth reading about. The wishes of mankind are encapsulated in this poetry: "I should walk up the stairs right now/ and make slow love to the woman I live with." These are poems which are provoking and well-thought out, to the point of being accessible: "It wasn't easy, inventing the wheel..."
Reading Hoagland's poetry, a sense of life is gained, while in his poetry, life moves on: observed, undisturbed, and intact for the next reader.

I paid [dollar amount] sight and unseen based on the author's appearance in a recent APR volume. It arrived as a slim tradepaper volume and my first thought was, 'I paid [dollar amount] for this?' After reading the first poem I realized how thoughtless I was and wished, oh how I wished, I had a hardcover version. Halfway through the book I put it away because I wanted to save the rest of the poems. They are too good to read all at once, but it's so easy to do. These are such an insight, the mind recalling all those spaces in a life, some painful and some funny, but all told in a carefully chosen syntax that doesn't misplace a single word.

Nothing I can say will do justice to this book. It is practically perfect. I wish I had found him sooner in life. I just caught him at a reading a couple weeks ago, and found his new poems a little more playful than Sweet Ruin, but equally brilliant. The other reviewers are right. This book is hard to find because no one wants to give it up. If you take poetry seriously, you can't afford not to indulge in Hoagland's brilliance. I don't want to break his work down line by line and get pedagogical. Every line is so good, I wouldn't know which ones to pick for discussion. Steal this book if you have to.

One of the most important books of poetry to ever cross my path. I return to this constantly. Earnest, real, vivid -- none of these words suffice to how incredible this book is. Get on it.

for about a year i have been struggling with my good intentions to try and fall in love with poems. now, i may be turning the corner. this is the 2nd book of poetry in a row that i have really, really enjoyed. last week i finished al purdy's "rooms for rent in the outer planets," and now i just got done with tony hoagland's "sweet ruin." both fantastic. hoagland's book had me turning pages with joy, rather than with the sense of a chore being gotten through. i highly recomend this book.

I cannot begin to tell you how I felt when, in 1994, I first read Hoagland's 'Sweet Ruin'-the language and the imagery just sparked a recognition in me in the midst of all the dozens of other poets and poetry.

It was a college workshop with a very well-known poet running it, and the text we were using was 'The New American Poets of the '90s' and I remember the professor seemed to be a bit amused at my choice when we were allowed to choose a favorite--all around were picking Robert Pinsky or Rita Dove (pretty big names in workshop circles, as I remember, and here was this complete--to me--unknown) and he asked me to read 'Sweet Ruin', and afterwards he said to me thoughtfully, scratching his bearded chin, that I'd heard Hoagland exactly right, the rhythms, everything. My favorite part, the end:

"I think there must be something wrong
with me, or wrong with strength, that I would
break my happiness apart
simply for the pleasure of the sound.
The sound the pieces make. What is wrong

with peace? I couldn't say.
But, sweet ruin, I can hear you.
There is always the desire.
Always the cloud, suddenly present
and willing to oblige."


I can't tell you what it was, but all these years later I always come back to this: the poem, the poet, the collection, and it still resonates for me in a way that nothing else ever has--as if he has explained me to me, but at the same time, made my excuses.

I have read this aloud over the phone to friends thousands of miles away. I've read it aloud at dinner parties. I've purchased it for friends. This is a remarkable collection of poems, a treasure. I don't want to sound so precious about it, but I can't help it. I found Hoagland's writing when I was 20, and I'm sure I'll still be coming back to the same poems when I'm an old lady. Amazing!

I do like some of them but mostly I have trouble understanding exactly what he is saying. Reading his poetry is similar to looking at particularly difficult abstract art. I bought this book because I had heard one of his poems and was blown away by the subject matter and the wording.