The Whole Nine Yards: Longer Poems [Paperback]

Daniel Hoffman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 2009

The Whole Nine Yards offers poems spanning the career of former Poet Laureate Daniel Hoffman. These explore violence and transcendence in realistic, gothic, and comic modes, as they tell of war, cold war, domestic violence, bureaucratic oppression, and a compassionate rescue at sea. Searching and lyrical suites celebrate the births of children, recoup a year in wartime France, and meditate on life and death, the seen and the unseen. Hoffman aims to share the pleasures of dramatizing language, theme, and form in dimensions new to his work. The result is a compelling collection from a distinguished poet.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

The six narratives and three sequences in this book are supposed to be “different from one another,” and, to be sure, each narrative is distinctive. “The Love Child,” about the coincidence a downed pilot stumbles not upon but into, and “A Barn Built in Ohio,” a stretcher picked up while asking the way to Dayton, are both outlandish and sad, but whereas “Barn” admits rueful humor, “Child” evokes terror and pity. “Shocks” is an ordinary guy’s monologue on practical justice; “Buddies,” a memoir of fun during what most call the Depression but here demands its alternate identity, the interwar period. “Jane Doe” and “Samaritans” speculate on the recurring mysteries represented by an abandoned baby and beached whales, respectively. The three sequences differ even more than the narratives. Though “Blessings” and “Broken Laws” both consider transcendence, the first descries it in procreation, the other in the firmament. The sojourner’s reports of “A Year in Dijon” embrace narrative and philosophical modes and add the historical to them. The mastery of a profoundly observant poet is confirmed throughout. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

About the Author

Daniel Hoffman has published a dozen books of poetry, including Beyond Silence, his collected shorter poems, and Brotherly Love, a finalist for both the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. He has recently received the Arthur Anse prize for "a distinctive poet" from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and, from the Sewanee Review, the Aiken-Taylor Award for Contemporary American Poetry. The best known of his six critical studies is Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe, also a National Book Award finalist. He has taught at Swarthmore College and at the University of Pennsylvania, where he is the Felix Schelling Professor of English Emeritus. Hoffman lives in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, and on Cape Rosier in Maine.

Product Details

• Paperback: 70 pages
• Publisher: Louisiana State University Press (April 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0807134147
• ISBN-13: 978-0807134146
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,614,592 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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