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.
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. |
